SCAR XXXVII Paper 20: Standing Committee on Antarctic Data Management (SC-ADM) Popular

XXXVII SCAR Delegates Meeting
5-7 September 2022, Goa, India

SCAR XXXVII Paper 20: Standing Committee on Antarctic Data Management (SC-ADM)

Agenda Item: 5.2
Person Responsible: Johnathan Kool
Report Authors: Johnathan Kool

Summary

2020-21

SCADM jointly developed a polar data policy recommended principles document in conjunction with the Arctic Data Community and Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). The completed principles document is available for viewing at https://zenodo.org/record/5734900#.Yt3OInZBxaQ.

The Antarctic Master Directory portal was re-developed in response to architectural changes made to the Global Change Master Directory by NASA. The re-developed website’s location is https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/portal/amd/search​. SCADM also collectively decided to change the name going forward from the Antarctic Master directory to the Antarctic Metadata directory to better describe the function of the site, and to move away from using terms with connotations of inequality.

2021-22:

SCADM supported and attended the Fourth Polar Data Forum held in the Hague, Netherlands and online in September 2021, with 351 participants from 50 different countries. For details on activities, see https://polar-data-forum.org/.

As part of Polar Data Forum IV, SCADM participated as part of the planning committee, and also offered an award for presentations that related to Antarctic or Southern Ocean data or data management, improved or exemplified FAIR data practices, and favoured Early Career Researchers. Following the event and on the basis of unanimous consent from SCADM members, two teams were awarded the Prize: Alice Fremand and Julien Bodart from the British Antarctic Survey, and Chiara Ripa and Giulio Verazzo from the Istituto di Scienze Polari in Italy. Both teams gave an extended presentation of their work to SCADM, and the initiative was regarded as a successful and productive use of funds to support increased engagement, particularly of early-career researchers.

This principles document developed during 2020-21 was used to revise the SCAR Data Policy. The document went through several rounds of collective revision among SCADM members, and then was submitted to the SCAR Executive Committee. The document was subsequently endorsed by the Committee, and is available for viewing in the SCAR Library as pdf SCAR Report 42 (184 KB) .

SCADM has also been promoting increased use of schema.org by National Antarctic Data Centres. A prototype search portal has been developed by the World Data System (WDS). The National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research of India has agreed to potentially assume hosting responsibilities for the site.

SCADM continues to engage new members, including new representatives for Spain (Susana Diez Tagarro) and Italy (Alberto Salvati). Attendance at regular monthly meetings continues to be strong (membership numbers), reflecting growing interest and engagement relating to polar data management.