This report is on the topic of informatics and its relations to scientific research and data - rich, multi-faceted data that represent the earth and environmental systems. Data travel from field and laboratory into collections, repositories and archives. Just as data are a scientific resource, so too the work carried out with data and their organization is a resource for the environmental sciences.

Informatics is concerned with the stewardship of data, that is, with the tending of data and its flow, the design of information systems and their interfaces, and the growth of infrastructure given a distributed variety of data arenas. Enacted at the intersection of information science, environmental science and social science, informatics is evolving as we learn more about information environments and arrangements of human and technical systems. Five informatics ‘good practices’ are identified in this report:

Informatics Good Practices

1. Incorporate data problem formulation and data scoping early in the scientific planning process.

2. Recognize articulation, translation, negotiation and mediation as central to work with data.

3. Partner with appropriate information professionals for data work.

4. Create collaboration opportunities as well as coordination mechanisms for community work.

5. Recognize informatics as conducting research while carrying out information management.

The realm of informatics ranges across spatial, temporal, and organizational scales, weaving together diverse configurations, stretching over physical, digital and conceptual spaces. Many salient topics about data care remain to be discovered or investigated: data classification and provenance; data organization and modeling; data migration and data exchange; data assurance and quality control; data mediation and integration. Along with the development of roles for information professionals, we are learning about the dynamics of information environments, communities, and networks.

Informatics is happening. As we transition from use of ‘my data’ to ‘our data’, changes occur in data, collaborative, and scientific practices. Informatics provides new approaches and tools of interest to environmental scientists, information professionals, and social scientists alike.

I am an information manager privileged to work with several long-term, interdisciplinary projects within the Integrative Oceanography Division (IOD) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and as an affiliate of the Science Studies Program at UCSD with its dynamic mix of communication, sociology, history and philosophy. Regarding my agenda with informatics, it is twofold: to be a responsible data steward and to partner with environmental science researchers by creating a contemporary information environment that supports concurrently the practice of information management and the inquiry of informatics research.

The everyday work practices of Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) information managers are complex and contribute in multiple ways to scientific research. Our work aims to go beyond the formal image of data management and make visible some of the aspects involved in the day-to-day work that support the LTER program vision. Our focus is on work practices and the information management defined by multiple relations and tensions and structured to adapt to change processes. Major issues in the work of information managers are described in this report through their own voices. The everyday work practices of an information manager encompass technical and social issues related to data management and information processing. The work requires juggling a multitude of tasks and timeframes as well as sustaining multiple roles and memberships. Such complexity and fluidity may be conceptualized as an information management trajectory. This trajectory accommodates change and yet is often invisible due to lack of articulation. Three intertwined aspects of information management, namely support for science, data, and technology, are discussed. The tensions in data environments and information management work created by balancing these divergent elements are described.

The report presents an initial monograph on Ocean Informatics (OI), an information infrastructure initiative in the ocean science community. Using ethnographic methods, we observed and analyzed the development of the OI Initiative based at Scripps Institution of Oceanography over a period of 4 years (2002-2006). The focus of the report is the formation of an information environment that provides information management and information systems design expertise focusing on biological and ecological oceanography in particular. OI is specifically framed as conducive to support of scientific data practices, data curation, design practices, and information managers’ professional development when our understanding of these elements is under development amidst an era of transitions relating to digital data production and access. The effort aims to address short-term needs for information management while formulating and planning for the growth of infrastructure over the long-term. As an interdisciplinary initiative that spans multiple organizational units, its development is framed by a keystone relationship with the scientific environments with which it partners and within which it is embedded. It began as an oceanographic site in the Long-Term Ecological Research program (LTER) and subsequently partnered with the California Cooperative Fisheries Investigations (CALCOFI) as well. In bringing new attitudes and insights relating to living systems, the ecological perspective may also have significant ramifications in considering digital configurations. The OI Initiative highlights the envisioning of infrastructure efforts as having local, situated elements and how such efforts contribute to science today. The report captures the views of the diverse participants associated with the Initiative, thus providing a living portrait of Ocean Informatics whose development continues today. The report is in two parts with appendices appearing in a separate volume as Part 2.

The report presents an initial monograph on Ocean Informatics (OI), an information infrastructure initiative in the ocean science community. Using ethnographic methods, we observed and analyzed the development of the OI Initiative based at Scripps Institution of Oceanography over a period of 4 years (2002-2006). The focus of the report is the formation of an information environment that provides information management and information systems design expertise focusing on biological and ecological oceanography in particular. OI is specifically framed as conducive to support of scientific data practices, data curation, design practices, and information managers’ professional development when our understanding of these elements is under development amidst an era of transitions relating to digital data production and access. The effort aims to address short-term needs for information management while formulating and planning for the growth of infrastructure over the long-term. As an interdisciplinary initiative that spans multiple organizational units, its development is framed by a keystone relationship with the scientific environments with which it partners and within which it is embedded. It began as an oceanographic site in the Long-Term Ecological Research program (LTER) and subsequently partnered with the California Cooperative Fisheries Investigations (CALCOFI) as well. In bringing new attitudes and insights relating to living systems, the ecological perspective may also have significant ramifications in considering digital configurations. The OI Initiative highlights the envisioning of infrastructure efforts as having local, situated elements and how such efforts contribute to science today. The report captures the views of the diverse participants associated with the Initiative, thus providing a living portrait of Ocean Informatics whose development continues today. The report is in two parts with appendices appearing in a separate volume as Part 2.

The Eighth European Computer Supported Cooperative Work conference (ECSCW 2003), a biannual forum that brings together the social and technical aspects for supporting collaborations, provides a venue this year to gather researchers interested in the study of scientific collaborations and their technology support. The response to the call for papers for the Computer Supported Scientific Collaboration workshop (CSSC) is evidence of the CSCW community members shared interest in the elements of collaboration particular to scientific communities and in the challenges they present for designing computer-based support systems. Like the Three Smiths of Nylund's statue in Helsinki, we three organizers came together to work jointly at crafting an understanding of a scientific network, the Long-Term Ecological Research program. Having hammered out a workshop agenda, we welcome the CSSC participants. Through the position papers collected here and with our diverse case studies, from ecological teams and human genes to digital streams, we add shape to the characterization of CSSC.

The California Cooperative Ocean Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program is one of the longest-running, multidisciplinary ocean monitoring and observing programs in existence. For many years, the emphasis of data management within CalCOFI was to quality control and curate the individual datasets collected on CalCOFI cruises, and make them available to researchers and fisheries managers through printed reports and requests for data to the data curators. Today, a new goal is emerging of having CalCOFI datasets available online and, eventually, interoperable with other CalCOFI-related datasets and the larger, developing federation of the Ocean Observing System data. In this document we review the current state of data management within three of the primary CalCOFI datasets (hydrographic, ichthyoplankton, and zooplankton) and then make recommendations for moving towards the integrated online system that is envisioned, including expanding to other data types. Concrete recommendations for moving forward are summarized in Table 1 and explained in more detail throughout the text.

This report was prompted by an increasing number of inquiries from others learning about information management by doing it. Our project was undertaken in order to consider critically the work being done in a design studio in use for a number of years. This report explores the design studio concept, highlighting an arrangement used by designers to bridge theory and development. In the case presented here of the Ocean Informatics, work occurs at the intersection of science, data, and technology. In developing an arena for engagement, the studio is a collaborative strategy. As a practical introduction, a brief description of the Design Studio together with some of its elements and the motivations for creating it, are given

This report is about the development of DataZoo, an information system. Design, development, and use of this computer-based technology that aggregates, organizes, and delivers scientific research data is brought about through the efforts of a small information management team aiming to meet the data needs of field-oriented scientific research. The system supports ship-based oceanographic projects whose participants measure and observe and thereby produce an array of biological, physical, and chemical field data. The report could be considered the story of a software system but it becomes a larger narrative, a suite of interdependent tales when the data, the multiple contexts, and the associated roles are considered. To be understood fully, the DataZoo story must be considered from a variety of perspectives: a tool view provides a technological account of the information system with its incremental growth over three generations; an infrastructure view gives a situated understanding of the configuration and the work involved in creating a multi-faceted information infrastructure that interfaces with existing practices and procedures, and an ecosystem view describes the various phases, components, scopes and sphere’s of context with data arrangements. Our intent with this report is to reach out to a diverse set of audiences by including non-technical material along with technical material from various perspectives.

Satellite imagery is now being used to estimate the near-surface chlorophyll concentration for large ocean areas. To assess the accuracy and precision of these remote sensing techniques, contemporaneous ship and satellite data for the determination of oceanic chlorophyll concentrations have been collected. Since chlorophyll fluorometry is a widely used technique for the determination of chlorophylls at sea, our analyses have led us to review the literature of fluorometry in order to re-examine the assumptions and approximations made when using this field technique.

This report gives a summary of the general concepts of fluorometry, examines important assumptions, presents an outline of an established fluorometer calibration technique, and estimates the accuracy and precision of this methodology. Also included are field observations of the discrete chlorophyll to fluorescence ratio, of the variability of discrete chlorophyll determinations using various particle collecting filters, and of diurnal fluorescence ratio comparisons.

The launch of the Nimbus-7 satellite in October 1978 carrying the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) has made possible optical measurements of the oceans from space. Algorithms are presently being developed to relate these optical spectral measurements to the chlorophyll present in the water. Our purpose is to outline our own consistent methodology of along track shipboard fluorescence for the concurrent comparison with satellite derived values of chlorophyll. This report is not intended as a definitive statement on fluorometric techniques, but rather a working document describing our field techniques. Hence, although the theory is general, the specifics apply to the Turner and Turner Designs fluorometers.