LBA-DIS WG Telecon Minutes (January 30, 2002)

Participants :

• Merilyn Gentry

• Luiz Horta

• Amy Morrell

• Jeff Richey

Next Telecon:

The next telecon is scheduled for February 20, 2002, 10:00 EDT / 14:00 GMT 

Previous Telecon Minutes:

No changes to minutes from the January 09, 2001 telecon.  Amy will forward to DIS-WG.

 LBA DIS Process Flowchart Satus

An updated diagram created by Beth Nelson was sent out to the telecon participants prior to the telecon.   Good feedback.  Diagram looks good as a first cut, good comments.  Flowchart should present process for all of LBA, and not include specific LBA-ECO requirements on the main diagram.  Jeff emphasized that having a clear, step by step process should take priority over elegance.  Flowchart should be written for PIs, investigators, support staff, students, etc…  Suggestions were made to expand the different stages of maturing data under Investigator Produces, and make it clear that at each step, from Raw, to After 1 year, to After year N, to Final Data, that two things need to happen: 1. FTP data to CPTEC  2. Register Metadata.  Requirement to make data publicly available also needs to be clear.  List of items available for investigators from Beija-Flor is good, and it was noted that an emphasis on what/how scientists can benefit from this process is very important.  Specific comments on flowchart include:

• Remove (additional options available from LBA-ECO)

• Add a Raw Data under “Investigator Produces” which goes to storage at CPTEC.

• Add Preliminary Data after 1 year, and each year there after until Data is Final.  Need to deal with interim dataset submissions as data matures.

• Change wording on arrows to CPTEC storage to “ FTP Data to CPTEC” instead of “original” and “copy”.

• Change wording of step 2 to “Investigator Archives Data and Registers Metadata”

• In step 3, change Receives to either “Can Access” or “Searches”

• Change “Summaries” to “Data Set Descriptions” in output products of Beija-Flor.

• Change “All this info is pulled together” to “Metadata are pulled together”

 NRA Review Schedule as it impacts assessment of data registry:

Merilyn is compiling data compliancy statistics.  Plans are to discuss details regarding supporting proposal assessments during next GSFC visit (Quarterly Review (2/12) and 2/13).

 Effort to compile list of LBA sites:

Amy noted that the regions/sites in the STI picklists, which are used to populate the LME/Beija-Flor site picklists may not include all LBA sites.  Amy will send Luiz a listing of current STI site names and related information so that Luiz can start identifying which other LBA are missing from the list.  Right now, when scientists working at those other sites register in the LME, their site is not available in the picklist so they may make up a site name that may not be consistent.  Thus, searching for data on that site may not be accurate.  Merilyn will also provide a list of sites submitted thus far that were not a part of the picklist.

 Proposed new fields to be added to LME to facilitate data archive process:

Luiz, Merilyn and Amy discussed details regarding new data archive url fields to added to the LME which will track the URL of the data submitted to CPTEC.   Linking the LME files with the data set URLs at CPTEC is an important relationship that is needed for data compliancy reporting requirements.  Merilyn has provided and summary of the discussion and justification in the section below:

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LBA DIS WG recommendation regarding addition of new fields to the LBA Metadata Editor to manage data archive tracking information:

The LBA DIS WG recommends the addition of a new group of "LBA DIS Archive" fields:  an “LBA DIS data archive URL” field, an associated "LBA DIS data archive URL Label" field, and a "Public" check box to the LBA Metadata Editor.  This will be a repeatable group, i.e. will allow for multiple data archive URLs and an associated label and "Public" check box for each.

The information in these fields:

• will be entered and maintained by LME administrative staff,

• will be harvested by Beija-flor and maintained in the harvested index,

• will be extracted nightly to the Beija-flor harvested *.dat files and available for metadata analysis and inclusion in summary reports to project management

• will be visible only to the owner of the metadata file and to LME system administrators via LME,

• will not be displayed in Beija-flor,  and

• will be added to the LME form in a shaded/grayed section clearly marked "For use by LBA DIS personnel only" or something to that effect.  We are aware that this will not prohibit metadata owners from editing this information, but we determined that alternative means of restricting user-editing of these fields would require additional coding or creation of an LBA-DIS staff-specific LME instance, neither of which seemed economically feasible.
  

The "Public" flag will be a check box that will indicate whether the associated URL is publicly accessible, i.e. if checked; the URL will be "Public".

By including these new fields in the LME metadata file, the project can store data archive information in the same metadata file along with other related metadata specific to each data set included in LBA DIS.  This will facilitate data set tracking by LBA DIS staff and project management and improve the ability to assess and monitor data compliance for purposes of proposal funding, funding extensions, research license renewals, and compliance with Brazilian law.

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 Action Items:

• Beth to work with Amy and Merilyn on DIS Flowchart and related questions.

• Luiz to send Merilyn latest CPTEC data directory listing.

• Amy to send Luiz US Federal Holiday schedule

• Luiz is looking for a US calendar (including US Federal Holidays) as well.

• Amy to send Luiz STI Site information

• Luiz to start compiling list of other LBA sites not included in STI and LME/Beija-Flor site picklists

• Amy to change delimiter of STI extraction files for Luiz.

• Merilyn to summarize justification/details regarding new LBA DIS data archive url field for LME.

• Beth to update Flowchart based on comments from telecon

• Peter to follow up with Luiz regarding training materials and LBA Manaus web-site support.

• Amy to send last telecon minutes to DIS-WG.  Luiz to make them available on-line.

• Amy to prepare abstract/registration software summary and requirements for Peter

• Merilyn to compile a list of  “free-text” sites submitted in LME (sites not included in picklist)

Comments and suggestions