R2R Eventlogger: Community-wide Recording of Oceanographic Cruise Science Events

Methods used by researchers to track science events during a science research cruise - and to note when and where these occur - varies widely. Handwritten notebooks, printed forms, watch-keeper logbooks, data-logging software, and customized software have all been employed. The quality of scientific results is affected by the consistency and care with which such events are recorded and integration of multi-cruise results is hampered because recording methods vary widely from cruise to cruise. The Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R) program has developed an Eventlogger system that will eventually be deployed on most vessels in the academic research fleet. It is based on the open software package called ELOG (http://midas.psi.ch/elog/) originally authored by Stefan Ritt and enhanced by our team. Lessons have been learned in its development and use on several research cruises. We have worked hard to find approaches that encourage cruise participants to use tools like the eventlogger. We examine these lessons and several eventlogger datasets from past cruises. We further describe how the R2R Science Eventlogger works in concert with the other R2R program elements to help coordinate research vessels into a coordinated mobile observing fleet. Making use of data collected on different research cruises is enabled by adopting common ways of describing science events, the science instruments employed, the data collected, etc. The use of controlled vocabularies and the practice of mapping these local vocabularies to accepted oceanographic community vocabularies helps to bind shipboard research events from different cruises into a more cohesive set of fleet-wide events that can be queried and examined in a cross-cruise manner. Examples of the use of the eventlogger during multi-cruise oceanographic research programs along with examples of resultant eventlogger data will be presented. Additionally we will highlight the importance of vocabulary use strategies to the success of the Eventlogger use by the research community. The R2R Science Eventlogger runs on a dedicated "plugable" linux computer installed on each research vessel network. This R2R web server has been designed so it can be extended to support future R2R services. Best practice documents supporting increased consistency for underway instrument data collection, quality assessment of underway instrument data, and other useful capabilities made available on this common shipboard server platform will begin to provide a common set of web-services and science software tools for the "fleet-observatory".; Screenshot of customizable science event entry form that is part of the R2R Science Eventlogger software package. Latitude and Longitude are automatically added at the time the entry is made.