RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 9, ES3001, doi:10.2205/2007ES000232, 2007
[3] Complex multi-disciplinary character of the Program of IPY 2007-2008 makes increased demands to the data management system. It is obvious that it should provide integration of the observational data and scientific investigations concerning the polar regions of the Earth, be dynamical concerning variety of forms of the collected data, means of their delivery and transfer, be based on the acting systems of collection and distribution of the data on the natural environment. In essence, the completeness and the level of realization of this task determines the efficiency of realization of the scientific program of IPY on the whole, providing integration of heterogeneous data and information, well-timed access to information resources for study and practical application.
[4] In order to provide the management of the IPY data, a whole series of normative-methodical documents, beginning with "Concept of Information Exchange in the Period of IPY 2007-2008'' and ending by the formats of collection and storage of the data has been developed. The main principles of the collection and exchange of the national data based on the statements of the international policy of data exchange are determined in the document "Policies of the Data Management in the Scientific Program of Participation of Russian Federation in Conduction of the International Polar Year''. The main guidelines which should be used by all participants of IPY is "Plan of Management of the IPY 2007-2008 Data''.
[5] According to the "Concept'', the IPY data management is performed by the organizations-participants of the national program of IPY and the data centers of IPY nominated out of the organization-participants of the National Program of IPY on the basis of the disciplinary principle. The right and obligation to fulfill the functions of the IPY data centers are given to the international data centers (WDC) in the ICSU system [Webster, 1996] and to some other organizations (research institutes) having the corresponding experience and infrastructure abilities (Table 1).
[6] The methodology of the data exchange in the period of IPY conduction is based on the end-to-end (from observation platform to the final user) management of the data on the natural environment state as a mutually related set of information, technological and organization decisions realizing integrated processes of collection, accumulation, processing and distribution of the data and information production during IPY.
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Figure 1 |
[8] At each level, particular (pertinent only for this level) functions on reception, processing and transfer of the data to higher level are executed. The IPY-info database performs functions of data and metadata integration interacting with the two upper levels.
[9] At the expedition level, preparation and formatting of the data, metadata and documentation (scientific and technical reports, etc.) is performed in the electronic form according to the recommendations. The obtained observational results are compiled in the form of separate disciplinary data sets and are transferred to the organizations what are users of this or that type of the observations (often they are simultaneously the conductors of the observations).
[10] The observational data and related metadata obtained in an expedition in the scope of an IPY project should be presented into the organization conducting the project.
[11] In organizations-performers, the data should be registered, checked in the content, form of presentation, and quality. The data could also be undertaken to an additional processing in order to fit the established standards.
[12] The task of the transfer of observational data and scientific studies (the produced data) obtained in the scope of the projects and of the accompanying metadata into the data centers of IPY (depending on their disciplinary areas) is laid on the organizations conducting IPY projects and on the projects leaders. The task is also laid on these organizations of including of the metadata (description of data sets, models, software, and formats) into the Centralized metadata base (CBMD) by filling in of the corresponding Internet-forms of the IPY-Info system.
[13] The principal feature of the collection system due to the application of WEB-technologies is the fact that the metadata, in the first turn the descriptions of expedition observations and compiled data sets, are placed in CBMD of IPY-Info by the organizations-performers of the projects and become available to the users before the data itself arrive to IPY data centers.
[14] The IPY data centers perform registration and control of the presented data, formation of complete high-quality bases of real-time and archival data, inclusion of the data into the distributed system of the IPY databases and granted storage of the data according to the profile of the center activity. They also take measures for widening of the information resources of IPY-Info by involving data from other sources including commercial and international organizations.
[15] Long-term storage is realized by recording of the accumulated data, metadata, and their catalogs at technical carriers of information. A robotized library on magnetic cartridges is used for this aim in RIHMI-WDC, laser disks are used in other organizations.
[16] The international exchange of IPY data is carried out in the scope of international projects registered by the joint ICSU/WMO Committee on planning and coordination of the IPY performance in the order established by normative law acts of Russian Federation in this area. Copies of the data presented by the organizations-performers of projects for the international exchange, in an obligatory way are sent to the World Data centers (RIHMI-WDC, AARI, WDC-B on Marine Geology and Geophysics, WDC on Physics of the Solid Earth, and WDC on Solar-Terrestrial Physics) according to the disciplinary principle.
[17] Provision of the availability of the obtained data to a wide range of users nowadays and in the future is one of the principal requirements of the IPY data politics.
[18] One should understand the availability in a wide plane not only as a physical ability for the users to obtain a copy of the data on a technical carrier or to look them through via the Internet, but also the form (format) of the data presentation making its use easier.
[19] First of all, one should mention the requirement according to which the data should be accompanied by the metadata, that is, by the complete description needed for understanding of the data and their correct application by other users.
[20] Due to the multi-disciplinary character of the IPY program, especially urgent are the problems of standardization of the data and metadata forms. Because of a large variety of the observed parameters and regions of application of the information on polar regions of the Earth, development of the standard format of the data and organization of its application in the practice of information activity present a complicated problem.
[21] To solve this problem, the Plan of the IPY Data management plans application, on one hand, of formats widely used in various disciplines, in particular, for collection and storage of the data of regular meteorological, oceanographic, geophysical and other observations (Table 2).
[22] On the other hand, for the observational data having no formats, or instead of formats having found no broad use, it is proposed to use the specification of the format of data exchange on the marina environment developed in RIHMI-WDC (RIHMI-WDC Technical Specifications, 2007).
[23] This specification combines three classes of formats: the so-called table-text format, format of a document, and format of a map.
[24] The table-text format is, as a rule, used for the results of observations expressed in numerical, or alphabetic-numerical form. Widely used program products of the MsOffice (Excel, MsAccess), or in the worst case any text editor could be used for preparation of the data in this format However using the mentioned software does not guarantee fulfilling the standard and correspondence between the data description and their actual structure. The data in the table-text format are accompanied by a formalized description which makes it possible to perform a syntactical control of the data and their grouping over elements. So an autonomic program is supplied to check the format of the collected data as well as syntactic and minimal semantic verification.
[25] A simple text format ( *.txt), or the format of the MsWord ( *.doc) and Windows RTF ( *.rtf) editors are recommended as formats for documents. The formats *.doc or *.rtf are recommended to be used for text-graphic information. The exchange SHP-format used in GIS is used for cartographic information.
Citation: 2007), Participation of Roshydromet's World Data Centers in the International Polar Year 2007--2008 Programme, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 9, ES3001, doi:10.2205/2007ES000232.
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