Improving discovery of carbon cycling data with semantic annotation

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LTER has a wealth of carbon cycling data from many biomes, and its diversity sometimes hampers effective discovery for synthesis or reuse.  The semantic web offers mechanisms to attach rich content to our datasets that includes specific context and extended descriptions which can be used to enhance discovery.  However, these mechanisms require a significant effort that is generally beyond the scope and resources of a program the size of LTER. A large data federation project, DataONE, has a component focused on using semantic structures, and is applying those to LTER carbon cycling-related datasets. The benefits of this partnership are 2-fold: with LTER data, DataONE has a complex use case for applying and vetting semantic technologies. LTER gains semantic structures and related software which will enhance a user's ability to understand and reuse its data.

There are tools becoming available to add semantic descriptions of measurements to cataloged LTER data records in DataONE. This working group will demonstrate the current ontology for browsing and commen, and introduce the process of matching ontology terms with LTER datasets. The working group will also gather input for objective "ground truth" from those most knowledgable about LTER carbon cycling data (cientists and data managers) which can be used to confirm the accuracy of DataONE's test queries.