Currently different data formats between research centers pose a challenge to oceanographic researchers, but a new project is going to make marine data sets more easily accessible to researchers worldwide. 

The ODIP II project will use NERC’s vocabulary server to ‘translate’ between these different data semantics. ODIP II is a collaboration between the USA, Australia and the EU. By the time it is complete, in May 2018, it aims to have developed a means of seamlessly sharing and managing marine data and coordinating the existing regional marine e-infrastructures.

The Head of BODC Dr Graham Allen, which is leading the vocabularies aspect of ODIP II, said, “This project will open up the possibilities of global marine research. For example, if scientists could access all the data on ocean temperature from, say, the North Sea, they would get a much more comprehensive insight into changes in ocean circulation there. Data management innovations like this enable the next big global scientific advances to happen.”

Helen Glaves of British Geological Survey, who is leading ODIP II welcomed the extension: “ODIP has already succeeded in demonstrating a coordinated approach to the sharing of marine data on a global scale through the development of prototypes. This new funding will not only allow these prototype solutions to become fully operational, but will also enable the scope of the current project to be widened.”