Biodiversity and Ecosystem Informatics - BDEI: Designing an Infrastructure for Heterogeneity of Ecosystem Data, Collaborators and Organizations

EIA-0131958 Bowker，Geoffrey加州大学圣地亚哥分校BDEI：为生态系统数据、合作者和企业的异质性设计一个基础设施项目摘要生物多样性和生态系统数据目前正在由松散连接的私人、政府和非营利机构以各种格式收集。对这种双重异质性的正常反应是元数据（关于数据的数据）标准的开发和实施;在这种反应中，人们试图将数据从其组织环境中抽象出来，以便使其普遍可访问。这个项目采取了相反的轨道，并寻求新的方式接地环境数据在其组织的背景下，以这种方式，它既可以更灵活地使用今天，所以它可以保持其价值更长的时间。基于过去25年在科学研究领域的工作，这一假设是，正式的数据描述必须被非正式的描述所包裹，才能有用。对短期数据的非正式描述是通过面对面的接触，通过交换研究生，通过会议论文等提供的。正是这一层在生物多样性和生态系统信息学的高度分布式数据收集工作中丢失;当数据被包装在正式的元数据中并保存到磁盘时，这一层也会丢失。该项目的目标是开辟一个新的数据库查询领域，该领域与生物多样性和生态系统社区的具体问题密切相关，这些问题是由于它们需要非常持久和高度分布的数据而产生的。该项目将发展成为一个更大的研究之间的衔接元数据和叙事模式的包装数据。

EIA-0131958Bowker, GeoffreyUniversity of California - San DiegoBDEI: Designing an Infrastructure for Heterogeneity in Ecosystem Data, Collaborators and OrganizationsProject SummaryBiodiversity and ecosystems data are currently being gathered in a large range of formats by aconstellation of loosely connected private, government and not-for-profit agencies. The normal responseto this double heterogeneity has been the development and enforcement of metadata (data about data)standards; in this response one tries to abstract data away from its organizational context in order torender it universally accessible. This project takes the opposite track, and seeks new ways of groundingenvironmental data in its organizational context in such a way that it can both be used more flexibly todayand so it can retain its value longer. The hypothesis, based on the last 25 years of work in the field ofScience Studies, is that formal data descriptions must be wrapped in informal descriptions in order tobe useful. The informal description for short-lived data is provided by face-to-face contact, byexchanging graduate students, through conference papers and so forth. It is precisely this layer which islost in highly distributed data collection efforts characteristic of biodiversity and ecosystem informatics; itis also this layer which is lost when data is wrapped in formal metadata and saved to disk. The goal ofthis project is to open up a major new field of database inquiry tied precisely to the specific problems ofthe biodiversity and ecosystems communities generated by their need for very long lasting and highlydistributed data. The project will develop into a larger study of the articulation between metadata andnarrative modes of wrapping data.