The University of California - Santa Barbara is awarded a grant to support a workshop for advancing a unified representation model for observational data. The purpose of this workshop is to reach broad agreement among developers of information networks on a fundamental framework for representing the semantics and properties of environmental observation data. The participants of this workshop are environmental and information scientists involved in the design of databases, data integration tools, and data access services for ecological, biological, and environmental research. The participants will compare proposed schemas for knowledge representation to identify the level of standardization required to ensure interoperability of data integration tools across multiple science communities. The workshop will produce a report identifying its findings and recommendations for creating and maintaining necessary standards.
