In another step toward connecting recent data with the fields that apply it, the National Science Foundation has awarded a $2 million grant to the University of Michigan’s School of Information. The funds will support the Sustainable Environment-Actionable Data (SEAD) project, which aims to create a system for scientists to share their data across disciplines.
The project is a partnership with U of M, Indiana University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Illinois.
Other data sharing sites do exist. SEAD will be distinctive in that it intends to use social networking technologies comparable to YouTube and Flickr and in that its focus will be on research related to sustainability. The purpose of these sharing tools will be to increase data availability and provide opportunities for social networking among individuals with shared interests. The team of developers also emphasizes the potential SEAD will have as an educational tool, especially for universities.
The goal of the project is to foster faster growth in research and application of sustainable practices. Sustainability can have several meanings. SEAD will focus on those that relate to environmental issues. The research that SEAD intends to include covers information related to resource use, human/land interactions, social parameters that impact environmental issues, environmentally related technologies, and environmental economics.
The scope of the project is broad and does not focus just on one area of sustainability, which is an intentional choice. Environmental issues are driven by natural and human forces and by the relationship between those forces. As a result, research that occurs in diverse fields, sociology and geology for example, can be influenced by one another. Colleagues from different departments may have contact with one another and specialists within a field may have contact with each other from across the region via conferences. But online networking sites such as the one SEAD aims to create offer greater opportunities for researchers to pinpoint the data or background information they need from a greater pool of researchers.
For the first few years, developers expect that SEAD will work primarily with researchers in the Great Lakes and Missouri Basin area. If the project is successful, it could provide a model for other data-sharing projects to help the United States meet a goal of improving human use of the environment.