LAGOS-NE: The people behind the scenes to create an open database

We are thrilled to announce that the LAGOS-NE data paper is published, which means that the underlying data are live:  https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/doi/10.1093/gigascience/gix101/4555226

Creating something like LAGOS-NE takes a wide range of contributions, expertise, and types of work. We want to extend a HUGE thanks to everyone who contributed. This effort could not have happened without the willingness of people to work within an open-science perspective–to share their data, skills, and tools openly. I am also particularly struck by the important contributions of so many early-career scientists who provided so many creative and novel approaches and ideas to make this effort happen. Specifically, it took 5 major efforts and types of contributions to create LAGOS-NE, and all individuals played a key role:

1. The data providers spent time sharing their data and documentation with us to create the database, and fielded numerous questions about the data.
2. The data integrators spent time manipulating the data and authoring metadata for the individual datasets and were the point of contact to the data providers
3. The geo-data creators developed the GIS tools to create the large number of metrics calculated from the many national-scale geographic datasets that part of LAGOS-NE
4. The Information-managers designed and created the database
5. The Data-accessibility-managers designed the strategy for sharing the data by preparing the data and metadata tables into a format to share and make publicly available; as well as design and write an R package for users to use the LAGOS-NE data.

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I would like to extend a personal thanks to each and every one of the following individuals:

1.  Data providers

• Provided water quality datasets by finding funding for data collection, sampling, entering data, conducting quality-control,  writing documentation and metadata, and sharing  — Linda Bacon, Michael Beauchene, Karen Bednar, Marvin Boyer, Mary Tate Bremigan, Steve Carpenter, Jamie Carr, Kendra S Cheruvelil, Matt Claucherty, Joseph Conroy, John Downing, Jed Dukett, Chris Filstrup, Clara Funk, Maria Gonzalez, Linda Green, John Halfman, Steve Hamilton, Paul Hanson, Elizabeth Herron, Celeste Hockings, James Jackson, Kari Jacobson-Hedin, Lorraine Janus, William Jones, Jack Jones, Caroline Keson, Scott Kishbaugh, Barbara Lathrop, Jo Latimore, Yuehlin Lee, Noah Lottig, Jason Lynch, Leslie Mathews, William McDowell, Karen Moore, Brian Neff, Sarah Nelson, Mike Pace, Donald Pierson, Amina Pollard, David Post, Paul Reyes, Donald Rosenberry, Karen Roy, Lars Rudstam, Orlando Sarnelle, Nancy Schuldt, Pat Soranno, Nick Spinelli, Emily Stanley, John Stoddard, Jason Tallant, Anthony Thorpe, Mike Vanni, Gretchen Watkins, Kathie Weathers, Kathy Webster, Jeff White, and Marcy Wilmes

2.  Data integrators

• Authored metadata and prepared individual datasets — Mary Tate Bremigan, Claire Boudreau, Kendra S. Cheruvelil, Sarah Collins, C. Emi Fergus, Chris Filstrup, Emily N. Henry, Noah Lotticg, Sam Oliver, Nick Skaff, Pat Soranno, Emily Stanley, Kathy Webster
• Prepared the integrated metadata document for LAGOS-NE — C. Emi Fergus
• Prepared EML metadata for water quality datasets — C. Emi Fergus
• Prepared EML metadata for some water quality datasets — Claire Boudreau
• Designed and implemented the quality-control analysis for the water quality data — Noah Lottig
• Wrote parts of the technical documentation for LAGOS-NE that was part of the documentation article — Ed Bissell, Mary Bremigan, Kendra S. Cheruvelil, Sarah Collins, C. Emi Fergus, Corinna Gries, Noah Lottig, Caren Scott, Nick Skaff, Nicole Smith, Scott Stopyak, Pat Soranno, Craig Stow, Ty Wagner, Kathy Webster
• Editor of the technical documentation for LAGOS-NE that was part of the documentation article — Jean-Francois Lapierre

3.  Geo-data creators

• Developed geospatial tools and performed geospatial analyses — Scott Stopyak, Nicole J. Smith
• Developed methods for delineating lake watersheds — Scott Stopyak
• Developed freshwater metrics — Scott Stopyak, C. Emi Fergus, Nicole J. Smith, Patricia Soranno
• Created LAGOS-NE_LOCUS and conducted quality control — Ed Bissell
• Designed the quality-control analysis for the geo-data — Sarah Collins, Caren Scott
• Conducted quality-control analysis for the geo-data — Sarah Collins, Caren Scott, C. Emi Fergus, Nick Scaff, Kathy Webster
• Authored geospatial metadata — Nicole J. Smith
• Prepared geodatabase for sharing — Nicole J. Smith

4.  Information managers

• Database design, database creator, database manager — Ed Bissell
• Database design — Pang-Ning Tan
• Database design – Corinna Gries
• Database design contributor — Patricia Soranno
• Wrote R code to import water quality datasets into LAGOS data model — Ed Bissell, Sam Christel, Noah Lottig, Shuai Yuan 

5.  Data-accessibility-managers 

• Designed the strategy for sharing the data by preparing the data and metadata tables into a format to share and make publicly available — Corinna Gries, Colin Smith, i.e.,  Environmental Data Initiative
• Wrote the LAGOS-NE R package to make LAGOS-NE accessible to users — Jem Stachelek, Sam Oliver

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Without all of these individuals, LAGOS-NE could never have happened. Thanks to you all.

—  Pat Soranno, October 19, 2017

Some pictures of the CSI-Limnology team that worked together to integrate the data into LAGOS-NE: