Collaborative Research: Frameworks: Internet of Samples: Toward an Interdisciplinary Cyberinfrastructure for Material Samples

在许多科学学科中，特别是在自然和环境科学、材料科学、农业、体质人类学、考古学和生物医学中，研究经常使用材料样本作为参考、研究和实验的基本元素。对在实地和实验室收集的样本进行的观察构成了研究的关键数据资源，这些研究解决了我们地球未来可持续性的重大挑战，从环境变化;到粮食，能源和水资源;到自然灾害及其缓解;到公共卫生。公共资金的大量投资用于管理数十年甚至数百年来获得的大量样本，并收集和分析新样本，要求这些样本可以公开访问，易于检索，并记录有足够的信息，以使其可重复使用。目前美国和全球的样本和样本数据管理生态系统在利益相关者之间高度分散，包括博物馆，联邦机构，学术机构和个人研究人员，有许多机构和学科特定的目录，样本识别实践和描述样本的协议。iSamples项目是一个多学科合作项目，将开发一个国家数字基础设施，以提供全球唯一、一致和方便的材料样品识别服务;关于它们的元数据;并将它们与其他样品、衍生数据和文献中发表的研究结果联系起来。iSamples建立在以前的举措基础上，通过提供具有全球唯一的持久标识符的材料样本来实现这些目标，这些标识符可靠地链接到带有描述样本及其来源的元数据的登录页面，并允许明确地将样本与数据和出版物联系起来。iSamples利用大量国家投资，提供了以下方面缺失的环节：（i）实物收集（例如，自然历史博物馆、植物标本库、生物库）;（ii）野外观测站、海洋实验室、长期生态研究站点和观测站;（iii）数据储存库和网络基础设施。iSamples为STEM研究和教育、决策者和公众提供增强的基础设施。iSamples通过提供一种确保样品来源、提高科学重现性并证明符合道德标准、国家法规和国际条约的手段，为国家安全和资源管理带来益处。（iSamples）是一个多学科和多机构的项目，旨在设计、开发和推广服务基础设施，以独特、一致和方便地识别材料样品，记录关于它们的元数据，并将它们持久地链接到其他样本和衍生的数字内容，包括图像、数据和出版物。该项目将创建一个灵活和可扩展的架构，以确保不同利益攸关方的广泛采用和实施。iSamples将建立在现有的标识符基础设施上，如IGSN（全局样本编号;）和ARK（存档资源密钥），但不知道标识符类型。同样，iSamples将鼓励为自然历史样本（跨生物科学，地球科学和考古学）制定高级别元数据标准，同时支持专业领域的社区开发元数据标准。通过与地球样品登记系统SESAR（地球科学）、CyVerse（生物科学）和Open Context（考古学）中已建立的特定学科基础设施的集成，iSamples将扩展现有功能，增强一致性，并扩大其覆盖范围，以更广泛地为科学和社会服务。该项目包括三个主要目标：1）设计和开发iSamples基础设施（iSamples in a Box和iSamples Central）; 2）构建iSamples的四个初始实现，用于采用和用例测试（Open Context，GEOME，SESAR和Smithsonian Institution）;以及3）对开发人员，个人研究人员和与材料样本有关的国际组织进行外展和社区参与。该项目将遵循敏捷开发流程，其中包括社区参与作为创建软件需求和实施时间轴的重要元素。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Research frequently uses material samples as a basic element for reference, study, and experimentation in many scientific disciplines, especially in the natural and environmental sciences, material sciences, agriculture, physical anthropology, archaeology, and biomedicine. Observations made on samples collected in the field and in the laboratory constitute a critical data resource for research that addresses grand challenges of our planet's future sustainability, from environmental change; to food, energy, and water resources; to natural hazards and their mitigation; to public health. The large investments of public funds being made to curate huge volumes of samples acquired over decades or even centuries, and to collect and analyze new samples, demand that these samples be openly accessible, easily discoverable, and documented with sufficient information to make them reusable. The current ecosystem of sample and sample data management in the U.S. and globally is highly fragmented across stakeholders, including museums, federal agencies, academic institutions, and individual researchers, with a multitude of institutional and discipline-specific catalogs, practices for sample identification, and protocols for describing samples. The iSamples project is a multi-disciplinary collaboration that will develop a national digital infrastructure to provide services for globally unique, consistent, and convenient identification of material samples; metadata about them; and linking them to other samples, derived data, and research results published in the literature. iSamples builds on previous initiatives to achieve these goals by providing material samples with globally unique, persistent identifiers that reliably link to landing pages with metadata describing the sample and its provenance, and which allow unambiguously linking samples with data and publications. Leveraging significant national investments, iSamples provides the missing link among (i) physical collections (e.g., natural history museums, herbaria, biobanks), (ii) field stations, marine laboratories, long-term ecological research sites, and observatories, and (iii) data repositories and cyberinfrastructure. iSamples delivers enhanced infrastructure for STEM research and education, decision-makers, and the general public. iSamples benefits national security and resource management by offering a means to assure sample provenance, improving scientific reproducibility and demonstrating compliance with ethical standards, national regulations, and international treaties.The Internet of Samples (iSamples) is a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional project to design, develop, and promote service infrastructure to uniquely, consistently, and conveniently identify material samples, record metadata about them, and persistently link them to other samples and derived digital content, including images, data, and publications. The project will create a flexible and scalable architecture to ensure broad adoption and implementation by diverse stakeholders. iSamples will build upon existing identifier infrastructure such as IGSNs (Global Sample Number;) and ARKs (Archival Resource Keys), but is agnostic to identifier type. Likewise, iSamples will encourage a high-level metadata standard for natural history samples (across biosciences, geosciences, and archaeology), while supporting community-developed metadata standards in specialist domains. Through integration with established discipline-specific infrastructure at the System for Earth Sample Registration SESAR (geoscience), CyVerse (bioscience), and Open Context (archaeology), iSamples will extend existing capabilities, enhance consistency, and expand their reach to serve science and society much more broadly. The project includes three main objectives: 1) Design and develop iSamples infrastructure (iSamples in a Box and iSamples Central); 2) Build four initial implementations of iSamples for adoption and use case testing (Open Context, GEOME, SESAR, and Smithsonian Institution); and 3) Conduct outreach and community engagement to developers, individual researchers, and international organizations concerned with material samples. The project will follow an agile development process that includes community engagement as an important element of creating software requirements and an implementation timeline.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.