Publication of Data from National Research Vessels - EIF023
- RV Southern Surveyor
- RV Aurora Australis
Project Overview
EIF023 is a project that is funded by Australian National Data Service (ANDS). It is primarily aimed at automating the real-time publication of data from Research Vessel Southern Surveyor (RV SS) and Research Vessel Aurora Australis (RV AA) through the AODN and into the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC).
Both ships are blue-water national research facilities and are funded by the Australian Government. RV SS is operated by CSIRO and RV AA is operated by the Australian Antarctic Division. These two vessels are key elements of Australia’s national research infrastructure, enabling oceanographic, geo-scientific, fishery and ecosystem research in the open ocean up to the fixed ice edge of Antarctica.
RV SS is overseen by a steering committee appointed by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, with representatives from academia, industry and government. RV SS is available to all Australian scientists and their international collaborators, with access granted on the basis of proposals that are internationally peer reviewed and independently assessed for science quality and contribution to the national interest. Similarly, access to instrumentation and berths on RV AA is assessed by submission of research proposals which are then selected on their merit and on their relevance to the Government's strategic framework for Antarctic science. Support is provided to those approved projects which can be accommodated in the overall program of support for Australia's National Antarctic Program. Together these vessels contribute a significant proportion of in-situ blue water observations taken by Australian researchers.
Aims and Objectives
RV SS and RV AA are sophisticated data collection platforms capable of acquiring data from the sea surface, the water column and the sea-bed, as well as from the immediate atmosphere. Typically, a suite of data known colloquially as “underway data”, are sampled from a wide range of instruments whilst the vessels are on the move. The type of sampled parameters making up this “underway data” suite, the sampling regimes, sampling rates and formats of the captured data currently varies between vessels as do the data publishing policies.
The project aims to bring the data publication processes of the two vessels into alignment so that both vessels routinely publish their “underway data” suites and accompanying metadata, in near-real time (automatically) to the AODN, and via this network into the ARDC. This has the benefit of providing Australian researchers and environmental managers with almost immediate access to these data as they are collected, along with appropriate (shallow and deep) metadata. Importantly, data emanating from each vessel can then be integrated because the vessel managers will work together to ensure common data publication protocols and standards.
Software, Standards and Specifications
The following is a list of software, standards and specifications that are used by this project.
Software
· Oracle
· PostgreSQL and PostGIS
· Geonetwork (AODN MEST)
Standards and Specifications
Documentation
A discussion paper on the application of quality control processes and flags to ship-based observations and measurements. This paper is intended to foster discussion in the marine science community about creating a common quality framework.
An implementation guide that sets out some technicalities of choices made by the project and the software that was used. This should be of use to other projects working towards publishing interoperable data.
A guide to installing tomcat, one of the software packages used in this project.
A guide to installing Geoserver, another package used by this project.
Contacts
Anyone seeking further information about the project and its implementation should contact:
Kim Finney - Australian Antarctic Division (kim dot finney at aad dot gov dot au)
Paul Tildesley - CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (paul dot tildesley at csiro dot au)
