Community feedback collected between June 2019 and February 2020 on how researchers search and access new data for research as well as feedback on potential enhancements to help improve BCO-DMO’s service to the research community.

Oceanographic data, when well-documented and stewarded toward preservation, have the potential to accelerate new science and facilitate our understanding of complex natural systems. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) is funded by the NSF to document and manage marine biological, chemical, physical, and biogeochemical data, ensuring their discovery and access, and facilitating their reuse. The task of curating and providing access to research data is a collaborative process, with associated actors and critical activities occurring throughout the data’s life cycle. BCO-DMO supports all phases of the data life cycle and works closely with investigators to ensure open access of well-documented project data and information. Supporting this curation process is a flexible cyberinfrastructure that provides the means for data submission, discovery, and access; ultimately enabling reuse. Based upon community feedback, this infrastructure is undergoing evaluation and improvement to better meet oceanographic research needs. This poster will introduce the repository and describe some of the strategic enhancements coming to BCO-DMO, and presents an opportunity for you to provide feedback on enhancements yet to come. We invite you to think about your own research workflow of searching and accessing new data for research, and to provide your feedback through the poster’s interactive sections. Your input can help BCO-DMO improve its service to the research community.