LibKey Nomad
Data "Landscape"
Who produce ecological data?
- Researchers
- Research teams
- Government agencies
- Collaborative research organizations
Where can you look for ecological data?
- Data repositories
- Search engines that search across data repositories
- Government web sites
- Journal web sites
- Project web sites
Processes for Data Searching
- Brainstorm potential sources and make a plan (considering available time and other scopes)
- Searching the journal literature - following leads to project sites or repositories of journal replication data like Dryad.
- Going to the web sites of government agencies and looking for data web sites, catalogs and repositories
- Starting in broad repositories like Dryad or DataONE
- Identifying and looking in disciplinary, regional, or format-specific repositories like Living Atlas and ArcGIS Online
Sources for Consideration
- DataONE SearchData Observation Network for Earth allows you to search across the repositories of 43 (and growing) organizations that produce environmental science data.
- EDI Data PortalThe Environmental Data Initiative is an example of a repository of well-documented environmental and ecological data. It is included in a DataONE search, but provides more search granularity. EDI is a NSF-funded project to make ecological data easier to find and re-use.
- Dryad Digital Repository
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A repository of publicly available datasets associated with journal publications across all scientific disciplines. - Arctic Data CenterAn example of regional repository, an effort to pull together scientific research data about a region of the world.
- Landfire.govA collaboration between the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior wildland fire management programs to provide geo-spatial data for planning, management, and operations.
Finding Repositories
- DataONE Member NodesA list of all of the repositories that contribute to DataONE. Sometimes it is better to search in a small repository because there will be more ways to filter and more coherent context. This list is a good starting place to find repositories of environmental data.
- re3data.org
- This link opens in a new window
Search re3data by broad topic of data you are interested in. In class I'll use the example of ice. Discover small and large repositories and web sites that produce data, where you can search in more detail.
