ITR Collaborative Research: Enabling the Science Environment for Ecological Knowledge

在世纪，理解和维持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;挖掘这些数据以获得新知识;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许多这些问题，并提高我们进行生态科学的能力。这一多学科的研究调查将创建一个“生态知识的科学环境”（SEEK）-一个信息技术框架和基础设施，将用于通过促进分布式生态信息的发现，访问，整合，解释和分析来获取和扩展生态知识。SEEK将提供本地桌面数据与更大的数据和分析工具网络的整合，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倡议建立在NSF对生态和生物多样性信息学的大量和富有成效的投资的基础上，它汇集了四个高度合作的前瞻性机构，致力于发明和支持环境生物学的全球计算基础设施。该项目涉及来自生物多样性信息学伙伴关系的计算机科学家、生态学家和技术专家的多学科小组，该伙伴关系是一个由国家生态分析和综合中心、圣地亚哥超级计算机中心、堪萨斯大学（KU）和新墨西哥州大学（UNM））和合作机构（亚利桑那州立大学、北卡罗来纳州大学、佛蒙特大学和苏格兰的纳皮耶大学）。这项为期五年的计划将从根本上改善研究人员如何1）获得全球数据和信息的访问，2）快速定位和利用分布式计算服务，3）运用强有力的新方法来捕捉、再现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一个大规模的信息资源和计算服务网络，通过强大的数据发现和分析工具，从台式计算机操作。这些能力将大大提高研究能力，以更有效地解决全球环境生物学研究、管理和政策问题，这些问题越来越需要更有效、自动地访问分布式和异构数据。将采用多方面的方法，以确保SEEK产生的研究产品、软件和信息技术基础设施最佳地造福科学、教育和公众。外联活动包括社区参与、万维网门户网站、信息学培训以及创新的年度研讨会和培训方案，重点是向年轻调查人员和学生，特别是来自代表性不足群体的年轻调查人员和学生转让信息技术。在信息经济中，获取信息以创造知识和作出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：（一）通过SEEK基础设施，彻底改变生态、地球和人类层面数据和信息的发现、获取和整合;（二）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;（三）教育和培训下一代生态学家的信息技术技能;以及（iv）通过扩大获取生态数据、信息和知识的途径，改善科学家、资源管理者、决策者和公众对环境做出科学知情决策的机会。

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.