Spokes: SMALL: NORTHEAST: Collaborative: Building the Community to Address Data Integration of the Ecological Long Tail

Cary Institute Of Ecosystem Studies, Inc., Millbrook NY

Investigators

Abstract

Frequently research on data integration carried out by computer scientists and resulting tools must be modified to fit the needs of domain practitioners (ecologists in this case). This challenge is a socio-technical, collective action problem that can be addressed through a combination of tools and incentives. The project proposes to holding a series of workshops along with proofs-of-concept implementations. These workshops will result in approaches to decentralize the sharing of data in the long tail, through socio-technical approaches that appropriately incentivize and facilitate data integration by smaller labs. Such an interdisciplinary community will provide crucial real-world input to computer science researchers, which will give their research into tools the potential for larger impact in ecological practice and will yield better tools for ecologists. 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.