Example Information Models

While cyberinfrastructure systems within the geosciences have increased the availability and reduced the heterogeneity of earth observations within geoscience domains, deficiencies remain because they still describe, encode, and publish data differently. This limits the ability of all of these systems to unambiguously describe observations in a way that they could be interpreted by scientists or others from outside the domain. The two figures below show differences in the information models used by two domain cyberinfrastructures - the CUAHSI HIS and the EarthChem system.

In the simple depiction of the information model used by the CUAHSI HIS (shown below), an organization operates a network of monitoring sites. At each monitoring site a number of variables are measured. For each measured variable there is a time series of data values. A data series is made up of individual, time-indexed values that are each characterized by location (where the observation was collected), time (when the observation was collected), and variable (what the observation represents). This information model works well with sensor based observations and simpler sample-based observations.

The EarthChem system uses a different information model (shown below) for sample-based data. Observed values result from analysis of samples. Analyses depend on sample preparation methods, etc.

ODM2 is aimed at extending interoperability of discrete, feature based earth observations derived from sensors and samples and improve the capture, sharing, and archival these data. This, in turn, will make data more accessible - ODM2 is one of the building blocks needed to make data from multiple systems easier to find, integrate, and interpret, which is required in many of today’s broad, multidisciplinary, multi-media research studies aimed at solving society’s grand challenges.