An%20Oceanographic%20Event%20Logger

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An Oceanographic Event Logger
James R. Wilkinson and Karen S. Baker Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, University of
California San Diego
A FIELD PERSPECTIVE
A DATA STEWARDSHIP PERSPECTIVE
Field Practices
Information Infrastructure
Event Logger System Event Logger(s) Event
Number GPS gt Event Log
An oceanographic event logger, recently deployed
on CalCOFI research cruises, extends data
coordination into the data collection arena. The
event logger system consisting of networked
PCs, communal event log, GPS coordinates and
event indexing promotes standard conventions
establishes relationships between diverse data
efforts at the time of collection. The event
logger addresses issues of time, space and
categorization using standard vocabulary in order
to assist subsequent data integration and
exchange. It becomes one element of an
information infrastructure that contributes to
creating a common dataspace (Franklin et al,
2005), both conceptual and physical, that
stretches from field to land and back again.
Bridge Activities
Digital practices from data collection to data
preservation are supported by Information
Infrastructure. Infrastructure-building draws on
the fields of informatics, information systems,
science and technology studies, library and
information sciences as well as infrastructure
studies. At SIO, an Ocean Informatics environment
supports the design, development, deployment, and
enactment of effective data practices as part of
community infrastructure-building (Baker et al,
2006).
Design and Use
Purpose

• Project-specific data management must support
  data community coordination. By using the event
  logging system throughout the ship, all cruise
  participants, on any workstation, are able to
• contribute uniquely indexed events to the cruise
  event log.
• establish a common coordinate system to log all
  samples from shared activities, such as rosette
  sampling, using the event index and its
  ship-based GPS date, time, latitude longitude.
• relationally link diverse data products from
  shared events post-cruise using the index as a
  relational database identifier.
• correlate continuous data, such that weather,
  acoustics, or sea-surface temperature
  measurement, to individual or grouped events
  using the common coordinate system.

Event Number

• Design theory and classification analysis are
  playing an active role in the iterative
  development of the CalCOFI Event Logger (Lindseth
  Baker, 2006). Our methodology enables
  interplay of shared vocabulary-building and
  controlled vocabulary list-use. This facilitates
  a collective understanding of data and its
  organizing in addition to ensuring that data are
  well represented and integrated within the data
  community. Event Logger features include
• Configuration files to create local flexibility
  required for varying ship platforms and group
  interests
• Authoritative lists of shared vocabulary
  established to accommodate changing vocabulary
  and maintainability as well as to contribute to
  sociotechnical process-building
• Event numbers enmeshed in field practices that
  travel from sea to land as a data index
  incorporated into the architecture of the
  information system

20060511234530 32.865 -117.253
GPS Timestamp
Cruise Event Log
Methods

• Installation of the event log software on
  individual, networked Windows workstations
  enables local, project-specific activities lists
  (main figure). Each workstation polls common GPS
  event number files, incrementing the value when
  an event is recorded. A cruise log tabulates all
  logged events. Each workstation also generates a
  separate project-specific activities log. Current
  requirements
• standalone Windows pc with GPS
• networked multiple Windows pcs with GPS on
  one and a mapped network directory

Acknowledgements

• References
• Baker, K., SJJackson, and JRWanetick, 2005.
  Strategies Supporting Heterogeneous Data and
  Interdisciplinary Collaboration Towards an Ocean
  Informatics Environment. Proceedings of the 38th
  Hawaii International Conference on System
  Sciences. HICSS38, IEEE Computer Society, 2-6
  January 2005, Big Island, Hawaii, 2005. Hawaii
  International
• Franklin, M., A.Halevy, and D.Maier, 2005. From
  Dataspaces A New Abstraction for Information
  Management. SIGMOD Record 34(4)27-33.
• Lindseth, B. and K.Baker, 2006. Collaborative
  Design of an Oceanographic Event Logger.
  Proceedings of the Computer Human Interface
  Conference CHI2007. (submitted) .

We would like to thank the Ocean Informatics
participants who are designing for the long-term,
the field participants - ship and scientific
staff - who are enacting the system, as well as
the community participants who are
co-constructing the system. In particular we
recognize the work of Robert Thombley, Shonna
Dovel, and Jessie Powell. This work has been
supported by NOAA CalCOFI and NSF Long-Term
Ecological Research and Human Social Dynamics
Programs.
CalCOFI Conference 2006