Center for Embedded Network Sensing

CENS is producing a vast and rich array of scientific and technical data. Ensuring accessibility and maintaining the integrity of those data is essential for the research and educational efforts of CENS participants and future users of CENS data. The nature of CENS data and the heterogeneity of its users present a number of information and data management challenges. We need to understand better how to collect, organize, access, and preserve scientific data so that they are useful for multiple users having different level of subject expertise and with multiple purposes for use. To do so will require studying current practices and information needs of CENS users, developing user scenarios, and investigating standards, tools, and policies for scientific data, metadata, and information management. Here we present our current research and plans for the future. Our goal is for CENS to become a leader in the implementation of standards and technologies for multidisciplinary data and sensor network portals.