Sharing our experimental data and EarthCube

Dear Sediment Experimentalists,

Hope all is going well in the laboratory. In this message we have information about
(1) sharing our research topics and data with each other with a Google Fusion Table
(2) EarthCube, one of NSF’s latest efforts on data and knowledge management.


(1) Sediment Experimentalists Fusion Table

We’ve been trying to think of quick ways to share information about our research with the rest of the community, whether it is in progress or already published. So, we are testing a new resource for data sharing among sedimentary researchers.  This is the “Sediment Experimentalists” Google Fusion Table, put together by Raleigh Martin.  It can be viewed here:

To access the table view:
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=S508266LfWw

To access the maps view:
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=S508269Asyx

Our long-term goal is to generate a robust, secure, and easy-to-use framework for data sharing among sedimentary researchers.  In the near term, we believe that the Google Fusion Table, which is free and (relatively) easy to use, can act as a testbed for data sharing.  In addition to being free, the Fusion Table provides nice visualization and sorting tools.

We encourage you to add information about your own research projects to the Fusion Table.  If you would like to do this, please send an email to sedimentexp@gmail.com with your Gmail address (if you don’t have one, you can create one for free).  More detailed instructions for using the Fusion Table are available here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C34iCc4yd7stvUm4grpcz1q6KMhIFYpfx0VFlhb5UWU/edit

Please note that, while it is helpful, it is not necessary to directly share your data online.  Simply listing that the data is available (and providing contact information) is very useful.  Also, while this project is mainly aimed at experimentalists, we also encourage sharing of field data as well.

(2) What is EarthCube?

Many of us may have received multiple emails recently encouraging us to take a survey for EarthCube and participate in the discussions. One of the most common responses to these emails was probably “What is EarthCube?” Here are two attempts at answering that question:
(1) What is EarthCube? from the Sediment Experimentalists blog
(2) EarthCube’s official What is EarthCube? document
The short answer is “a knowledge and data management system,” but we also encourage you to follow the links to learn more. At this early stage in the system’s development, scientist feedback to the system architects is extremely important. If you are interested in this effort, please join the EarthCube site as a member and connect with us (Wonsuck Kim, Leslie Hsu, Brandon McElroy, and Raleigh Martin. We are participating in the events and will make sure that our community’s voice is heard at EarthCube.


Please reply to this email address (sedimentexp@gmail.com) with any comments, feedback, or questions.

Happy experimenting,

Leslie, Brandon, Raleigh, Wonsuck

Archived messages:
http://sedimentexperiments.blogspot.com/