Collaborative Interoperability through Brokering Technologies

Antonia Rosati (1), Lynn Yarmey (1)

Abstract
To support research behind grand challenge science questions, open technologies advance data curation in arenas such as data discovery, access, and distribution, etc. More and more data available online increases the importance of data discovery. The approach used to support effective data discovery in the Advanced Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (ACADIS) is the creation of an interdisciplinary, international, and cross-agency Arctic metadata brokering application called the Arctic Data Explorer. By aggregating metadata outside of their original context, the technical interconnectivity of a brokering system highlights differences in data curation practices, and often philosophies, among data repositories. Resolving these differences to present scientists with comparable metadata requires not only technologies, but also new communication, governance, and standardization mechanisms. Here we present the ACADIS approach to resolving these differences, offer lessons learned from scaling center-specific work into a cross-organization context, discuss the technical challenges in the design and development of the Arctic Data Explorer, and propose that ongoing, regular, intra- and inter-center collaboration is key to supporting modern science.