
GRIIDC 2020 Year in Review
Happy New Year! While it’s an understatement to say 2020 was quite a year, GRIIDC is grateful for the ability to work remotely and still accomplish everything we set out to do at the start of 2020.
By the end of 2020, GRIIDC housed 3,177 publicly available datasets — collectively over 86 TB of data — from 400 research groups and 2860 individuals. GRIIDC expects that in 2021 the collection and use of our system will continue to flourish.
Here are some highlights from GRIIDC’s busy 2020:
January: GRIIDC is housed at Texas A&M Corpus Christi at the Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico Studies. As of last year, more HRI researchers began submitting their data to GRIIDC. GRIIDC Program Manager Rosalie Rossi and Lalitha Asirvadam, Technical Coordinator, led a two-hour long interactive training workshop where HRI researchers learned how to prepare and share their data. They introduced participants to the GRIIDC system, data management best practices as well as how to organize, submit, and cite their data.
February: GRIIDC attended the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference in Tampa, Fla by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). The conference theme was “2020: A Milestone in Gulf of Mexico Research” which celebrated the scientific accomplishments over the last 10 years and considered the future of science and management in the Gulf. GRIIDC also hosted an exhibit booth throughout the conference to help researchers with their data and distribute general information about the program. GRIIDC also participated in the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) Tools Café where attendees learned about GRIIDC’s useful tools for data management planning such as the Data Discovery portal and updates to the search feature. GRIIDC also held its last Advisory Committee (AC) luncheon with research consortia representatives and members of the Research Board Data Committee. GRIIDC Director Jim Gibeaut and Program Manager Rosalie Rossi, provided updates on the program’s progress and future plans.
March: The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – Gulf Research Program (GRP) joined GRIIDC to utilize our data management and repository services. In addition to the standard data management services GRIIDC provides, GRIIDC also developed a GRP subsite, which displays only GRP related datasets, research groups, and researchers. GRIIDC also developed enhanced Research Group pages that relate researchers, datasets, and publications. New features developed for GRP will be incorporated in the main GRIIDC system.
*GRIIDC is currently preparing to offer GRP researchers and staff training via webinars to familiarize them with GRIIDC’s processes and how to submit their data to our system.
Also, GRIIDC GIS and Metadata Specialist William Nichols welcomed baby Emmet Nichols!
April: GRIIDC released updates to the Search application which allows users to search through the thousands of datasets in the GRIIDC repository. Some of the updated search features include advanced search terms, more relevant results, DOI and UDI matching, restricting search to specific fields, facets, and search tools. These modern software tools will allow GRIIDC’s software development team to easily improve and extend the search application.
May: GRIIDC was excited to continue our partnership with the Mississippi Based RESTORE Act Center of Excellence (MBRACE) program. GRIIDC held a webinar for MBRACE researchers that introduced them to the GRIIDC system and presented data management best practices.
June: After 10 years, GRIIDC held the last GoMRI Advisory Committee (AC) teleconference. Data managers gave their last status reports and GRIIDC management updated the AC on the closeout. We were sad to say farewell to our GoMRI partners and advisors who have helped make GRIIDC what it is now but are hopeful we will continue working with them in the future.
July: GRIIDC Research Specialist Bipana Sigdel and Mukesh Subedee, HRI Research Data Scientist in the Coastal & Marine Geospatial Lab, welcomed baby girl Maya!
GRIIDC also hired Natalie Davis, Project Coordinator IV. She assisted with the data package review process, focusing on metadata review. Natalie previously worked with the Marine Resources Development group at HRI focusing on oyster aquaculture research in Texas.
August: The GRIIDC software development team created new data reports to help with administration purposes.
September: The GRIIDC software development team improved the GRIIDC statistics page which provides data about the number and size of datasets, total datasets over time, and number of downloads.
October: GRIIDC participated in the virtual 2020 Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) Tools Café. Rosalie Rossi, GRIIDC Program Manager, presented GRIIDC and showcased our latest updates including the most heavily used features on our site — the Search feature.
November: The GRIIDC team released an updated model data guidance document to include examples of different models and submission requirements to help researchers better understand the process.
December: GRIIDC spent the end of 2020 working with GoMRI researchers to wrap-up dataset submissions for grant closeout.
While GRIIDC was able to accomplish a lot during trying times, we are happy 2020 is behind us and we are looking forward to see what 2021 has in store! As always, if you’d like to share and store your data with GRIIDC, send us an email for a quote: help@griidc.org.