ITR Collaborative Research: Enabling the Science Environment for Ecological Knowledge

了解和维持21世纪的自然世界取决于提高我们获取生态、地球科学和人类维度数据的能力；挖掘这些数据以获取新知识；并向决策者和公众传达新的见解。计算机科学和信息技术研究可以有效地解决这些问题，并提高我们开展生态科学的能力。这项多学科研究调查将创造一个“生态知识的科学环境”（SEEK）——一个信息技术框架和基础设施，将通过促进分布式生态信息的发现、获取、整合、解释和分析，用于派生和扩展生态知识。SEEK将提供本地桌面数据与更大的数据和分析工具网络的集成，使生态学家和其他研究人员能够解决迄今为止难以解决的复杂研究问题。SEEK计划建立在美国国家科学基金会在生态和生物多样性信息学方面大量和富有成效的投资的基础上，它将四个高度协作、前瞻性的机构聚集在一起，致力于为环境生物学发明和支持全球计算基础设施。该项目涉及一个由计算机科学家、生态学家和来自生物多样性信息学伙伴关系（PBI）的技术专家组成的多学科团队，该伙伴关系由国家生态分析与综合中心（NCEAS）组成；圣地亚哥超级计算机中心（SDSC）；堪萨斯大学（KU）、新墨西哥大学（UNM）和合作机构（亚利桑那州立大学、北卡罗来纳大学、佛蒙特大学和苏格兰纳皮尔大学）。这项为期五年的计划将在以下方面带来根本性的改进：1)获取全球数据和信息；2)快速定位和利用分布式计算服务；3)运用强大的新方法来捕获、复制和扩展分析过程本身。SEEK还将专门为生态学家和其他研究人员提供访问大规模信息资源和计算服务网络的途径，通过在台式计算机上操作的强大数据发现和分析工具。这些能力将极大地建立研究能力，以更有效地解决环境生物学中的全球研究、管理和政策问题，这些问题越来越需要更有效、更自动化地访问分布式和异构数据。将采用多方面的方法来确保SEEK产生的研究产品、软件和信息技术基础设施对科学、教育和公众有利。外联活动包括社区参与、万维网门户网站、信息学培训以及一个创新的年度研讨会和培训计划，该计划的重点是向年轻的研究者和学生，特别是那些来自代表性不足群体的研究人员和学生传授信息技术。在信息经济中，获取信息以创造知识和决策与信息本身一样有价值。该项目将使生物多样性和生态信息的知识内容成为科学和社会的货币。重大项目成果的例子包括：(i)通过SEEK基础设施革命性地发现、获取和整合生态、地球和人类层面的数据和信息；（ii）开发智能分析工具和基础设施，以支持科学家、决策者和公众的需求；（iii）教育和培训下一代生态学家的资讯科技技能；（iv）通过扩大对生态数据、信息和知识的获取，改善科学家、资源管理者、决策者和公众做出科学的环境决策的机会。

Understanding and sustaining the natural world in the 21st century depends on improving our capacity to access ecological, earth science, and human-dimension data; mining these data for new knowledge; and conveying new insights to decision-makers and the general public. Computer science and information technology research can effectively address many of these issues and advance our ability to conduct ecological science. This multidisciplinary research investigation will create a "Science Environment for Ecological Knowledge" (SEEK)-an information technology framework and infrastructure that will be used to derive and extend ecological knowledge by facilitating the discovery, access, integration, interpretation, and analyses of distributed ecological information. SEEK will provide for the integration of local desktop data with a larger network of data and analytical tools, enabling ecologists and other researchers to tackle complex research problems that were hitherto intractable. The SEEK initiative stands on the foundation of substantial and productive NSF investment in ecological and biodiversity informatics and it brings together four highly collaborative, forward-looking institutions in a partnership committed to inventing and supporting a global computing infrastructure for environmental biology. The project involves a multidisciplinary team of computer scientists, ecologists and technologists from the Partnership for Biodiversity Informatics (PBI), a consortium comprising the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS); the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC); the University of Kansas (KU), and the University of New Mexico (UNM)) and partnering institutions (Arizona State University, University of North Carolina, University of Vermont, and Napier University in Scotland).This five-year initiative will lead to fundamental improvements in how researchers can 1) gain global access to data and information, 2) rapidly locate and utilize distributed computational services, and 3) exercise powerful new methods for capturing, reproducing, and extending the analysis process itself. SEEK will also specifically provide ecologists and other researchers access to a large-scale network of information resources and computational services, via powerful data discovery and analysis tools that operate from desktop computers. These capabilities will significantly build research capacity to more effectively address global research, management and policy issues in environmental biology that increasingly require much more efficient, automated access to distributed and heterogeneous data.A multi-faceted approach will be employed to insure that the research products, software, and information technology infrastructure resulting from SEEK optimally benefit science, education, and the public. Outreach includes community involvement, a WWW portal, informatics training, and an innovative annual symposium and training program that focuses on information technology transfer to young investigators and students, particularly those from underrepresented groups. In the information economy, access to information for knowledge creation and decision-making is as valuable as the information itself. This project will enable bringing the intellectual content of biodiversity and ecological information into currency for science and society. Examples of significant project outcomes include: (i) revolutionizing discovery, access to and integration of ecological, earth, and human dimension data and information through the SEEK infrastructure; (ii) developing intelligent analytical tools and infrastructure to support the needs of scientists, decision-makers, and the general public; (iii) education and training of the next generation of ecologists in information technology skills; and (iv) improving the opportunities for scientists, resource managers, policy makers, and the public to make scientifically-informed decisions about the environment by expanding access to ecological data, information, and knowledge.