Information Management at the Konza Prairie

The Konza LTER (KNZ) Information Management System (IMS) supports research and scientific discovery at the Konza Prairie Biological Station and beyond by providing well-managed, accessible, and high-quality data and metadata. In alignment with LTER best practices, the system aims to:

Ansure the accuracy, integrity, and long-term security of all KNZ data;
Ensure that KNZ data and metadata comply with LTER standards, to enhance accessibility and usability for current and future generations of scientists and students;
Enable efficient data discovery and access to data and metadata to support research and education at local, network, and broader levels;
Engage proactively with researchers and students during the research design phase to promote understanding and adoption of best practices in information management.

Access Data

References

Submit Data

The submitted tabular data file shuld be well-structured and follow the format described in the metadata. It may also include spatial or GIS data, as well as additional files (otherEntity), such as PDFs, images (JPG or TIFF), or analysis code (e.g., R scripts). If you plan to include additional data files, please check with the KNZ Information Manager.

Contact the KNZ information manager - before submitting data, contact Yang Xia, the KNZ IM, provide key details;
Prepare data - organize data logically by theme and structure. Combine related files when appropriate (e.g., multi-year data or datasets from one experiment);
- Data may be submitted as Microsoft Excel files or comma-separated files (.csv).
- Column header names should not include spaces or special characters such as ‘/’ (forward slash). Underscores are permitted.
- Data files must not contain empty cells. Missing data should be indicated with a consistent placeholder (e.g., -9999, NA).
- Use brief comments in the comments column, and avoid commas, use semicolons (;) instead.
Confirm data format - work with the KNZ IM to ensure your files and metadata meet archiving standards and are ready for submission.

Submit Metadata

Metadata explains who, what, where, when, and why of a dataset, providing the context needed for others to understand and reuse your data. The information you provide will be encoded in Ecological Metadata Language (EML), the metadata standard required by the LTER Network.

Please download and complete the KNZ Excel metadata template, then send it to the KNZ Information Manager, who will use those information to generate EML for your submission;
Also can use the ezEML online metadata editor from EDI to create metadata for the KNZ data package. Refer to the EDI metadata guideline Creating Metadata for a Data Package for more details or follow the specific instructions in the ezEML-KNZ guideline. After completing the metadata, send the data package to the KNZ IM, who will complete the final submission step;
Please contact the KNZ IM for additional guidance or if you have any questions.

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Information Management at the Konza Prairie