The International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (INTERACT) is a EU Horizon 2020 funded infrastructure project seeking to provide a geographically comprehensive infrastructure for arctic and high altitude research stations. The overall objective of the project is to facilitate the identification of environmental and ecological change, the understanding of change and prediction of future changes. The second phase of the project commenced October 2016. One of the major tasks in the project is to create a coordinated and unified data management approach that would optimize potential future reuse, sharing, and guarantee data and metadata stewardship and preservation. Herein we present the preliminary plan to carry out this objective by focusing on four principles: Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR).
Currently, 79 sites in arctic and northern alpine areas are part of the INTERACT network. Data collected at these stations are from different scientific disciplines, e.g. geo-sciences (including the atmosphere and cryosphere), hydrology, biology, ecology, and to some extent anthropology. These data are generated as a result of monitoring activities or short term projects. A survey of data management practices in INTERACT was conducted at the beginning of the project. The main finding is that data management at INTERACT stations is highly heterogeneous. In order to establish a unified view on all the data collected by INTERACT stations and through this show the benefit of INTERACT, interoperability at the discovery metadata and data levels is required. The first step towards this is taken through a Data Management Plan (DMP) which is identifying the general principles, common standards to apply and data dissemination principles.
The DMP for INTERACT is a living document oriented towards international data management frameworks like World Meteorological Organization Information System (utilized by e.g. Global Cryosphere Watch, Global Atmosphere Watch), and aligned with the activities of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and Sustaining Arctic Observing Network (SAON) Arctic Arctic Data Committee (ADC). INTERACT emphasizes long term data preservation (as promoted by ICSU-WDS), community driven best practices (e.g. RDA), and the principles outlined by the ADC, that promote free, ethically open, sustained, and timely access to Arctic data. This approach should provide easy integration with the H2020 Open Research Data Pilot, and ensure data access to a variety of stakeholders (e.g. ESA DUE, GlobPermafrost, etc.).
The initial data management effort focuses on discovery metadata, utilizing internationally accepted standards, protocols and vocabularies, ensuring the interoperability with international systems and frameworks, and the preservation of scientific legacy. Datasets will be documented using the Global Change Master Directory/Directory Interchange Format or ISO19115 standards. To provide interoperability at the data level, long term archival of data across different national repositories with long term mandates in self-explaining file formats (e.g. NetCDF, HDF/HDF5) is envisioned eventually.
Therefore, our goal is to establish a unified approach to metadata and data generated by stations in the INTERACT network. This will be beneficial for scientific purposes, but also for monitoring activities. The latter is particularly important as Arctic monitoring to a large degree rely on the effort of the scientific community
