ABSTRACT
The Environmental Data Initiative (EDI) is a trustworthy, stable data repository, and data management support organization for the environmental scientist. In a bottom-up community process, EDI was built with the premise that freely and easily available data are necessary to advance the understanding of complex environmental processes and change, to improve transparency of research results, and to democratize ecological research. EDI provides tools and support that allow the environmental researcher to easily integrate data publishing into the research workflow. Almost ten years since going into production, we analyze metadata to provide a general description of EDI's collection of data and its data management philosophy and placement in the repository landscape. We discuss how comprehensive metadata and the repository infrastructure lead to highly findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data by evaluating compliance with specific community proposed FAIR criteria. Finally, we review measures and patterns of data (re)use, assuring that EDI is fulfilling its stated premise.
ABSTRACT
With an overarching goal of addressing global and regional sustainability challenges, Long Term Socio-Ecological Research Platforms (LTSER) aim to conduct place-based research, to collect and synthesize both environmental and socio-economic data, and to involve a broader stakeholder pool to set the research agenda. To date there have been few studies examining the output from LTSER platforms. In this study we enquire if the socio-ecological research from 25 self-selected LTSER platforms of the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network has produced research products which fulfil the aims and ambitions of the paradigm shift from ecological to socio-ecological research envisaged at the turn of the century. In total we assessed 4983 publically available publications, of which 1112 were deemed relevant to the socio-ecological objectives of the platform. A series of 22 questions were scored for each publication, assessing relevance of responses in terms of the disciplinary focus of research, consideration of human health and well-being, degree of stakeholder engagement, and other relevant variables. The results reflected the diverse origins of the individual platforms and revealed a wide range in foci, temporal periods and quantity of output from participating platforms, supporting the premise that there is a growing trend in socio-ecological research at long-term monitoring platforms. Our review highlights the challenges of realizing the top-down goal to harmonize international network activities and objectives and the need for bottom-up, self-definition for research platforms. This provides support for increasing the consistency of LTSER research while preserving the diversity of regional experiences.
