One of ONC’s newest data stewardship initiatives developed over the last year is MINTED (Making Identifiers Necessary to Track Evolving Data), funded by the CANARIE Network. Due for public release later this month, this exciting project addresses the growing need to cite research datasets that change over time.
ONC data are very dynamic due to continually accumulating data streams, data reprocessing, and data product code versioning. While there has been a growing recognition of the benefits and need for data citations made evident by the reception of the FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable), existing platforms and tools such as Dataverse and the Federated Research Data Repository are currently only able to serve the needs of static or non-frequently updated datasets. ONC’s approach is driven by community best practices emerging from the Research Data Alliance.
MINTED will introduce Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and research organization identifiers (RORs) into ONC’s Oceans 2.0 digital infrastructure. A DOI is applied from the beginning of a deployment, providing traceability of the dynamic dataset life cycle, so that users can better interpret data integrity, respect the terms and conditions under which the dynamic data were accessed, and enhance reproducibility of scientific results.
The MINTED project also helps ONC to renew its certification with World Data System (WDS) CoreTrustSeal (CTS), identifying ONC as a repository that has implemented and supports FAIR data principles and best practices, encouraging confidence in content within.
Data Products and Services on the Rise
After a decade in the deep sea, Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) has been steadily increasing the number of active sensors gathering data about our ocean ecosystem. These state-of-the-art instruments monitor everything from oxygen and temperature to seismic activity and tsunamis, and are equipped with cameras and hydrophones capture the underwater sights and sounds of marine life and human activity.
This year has been particularly productive. The average number of active sensors was 12,105 in 2019-20 compared to 8,713 in 2018-19, representing a 39% increase over last year’s average (Figure 1).
Figure 1: ONC active sensors producing data (per quarter) and cumulative volume of uncompressed data archived 2009-2019.
This growing collection of deep sea, coastal, and land-based sensors is amassing an increasing volume of ocean data. ONC’s Data and Data Stewardship teams’ dedicated work ensures that this firehose of data is well managed, annotated, and archived. These inhouse experts are also developing a growing suite of data products and web services that help researchers, communities, and governments transform this data into knowledge. This year saw a 60% increase in the creation and revision of data products over the previous year (Figure 2).
Figure 2: ONC data products created/revised per fiscal year 2009 - 2020.
