
This project is a comparative study of interoperability strategies within three contemporary cyberinfrastructures. Our methods will include ethnographic, interview, and content data analysis to provide a situated social and organizational comparison of three scientific projects employing distinct infrastructures and deploying approaches to achieving data interoperability.
The three projects are:
- GEON (http://www.geongrid.org), a cyberinfrastructure for the US geo-sciences aimed at providing scientific data and resource sharing services to a broad range of disciplines to ensure a more integrated picture of earth processes.
- LTER (http://lternet.edu/), a federated network of biome sites developing an information infrastructure that aims at enabling inter-disciplinary collaboration and preserving data for the long-term in the ecological sciences.
- Ocean Informatics (http://oceaninformatics.ucsd.edu), nascent initiative for the ocean sciences based at UCSD Scripps Institution of Oceanography that aims at sharing scientific data using a collaborative design environment.