A network of ecological "satellites" set to monitor environmental change could do for ecology what the Hubble Space Telescope has done for astronomy, researchers say.
Since 1991 raw data from Hubble have been made publicly available for use by professional researchers, educators, and citizen scientists via an online catalog.
"The public can access [the data] and do their own research," said Hubble spokesperson Ray Villard. "They paid for it. They deserve it."
NEON will link together already existing field stations across the U.S. that are using planes and orbiters, ground-level sensors, and human-run labs to monitor activity in the wild. ...
With funding from the National Science Foundation, NEON program managers plan to collect and archive data online for at least 30 years. ...
NEON will also create opportunities for the public to aid scientists in conducting field research, said senior team member Carol Brewer, a biologist at the University of Montana. ...
Update. The project's name is actually "National Ecological Observatory Network"; the typo is in the source quoted. (Thanks to Alvin Hutchinson.)
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 2/27/2009 09:22:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
