When scientists from two or more disciplines work together on related problems, they often face what we call ‘science friction’. As science becomes more data-driven, collaborative, and interdisciplinary, demand increases for interoperability among data, tools, and services. Metadata – usually viewed simply as ‘data about data’, describing objects such as books, journal articles, or datasets – serve key roles in interoperability. Yet we find that metadata may be a source of friction between scientific collaborators, impeding data sharing. We propose an alternative view of metadata, focusing on its role in an ephemeral process of scientific communication, rather than as an enduring outcome or product. We report examples of highly useful, yet ad hoc, incomplete, loosely structured, and mutable, descriptions of data found in our ethnographic studies of several large projects in the environmental sciences. Based on this evidence, we argue that while metadata products can be powerful resources, usually they must be supplemented with metadata processes. Metadata-as-process suggests the very large role of the ad hoc, the incomplete, and the unfinished in everyday scientific work.
AgrePEChapmanD (1990) What are plans for?Robotics and Autonomous Systems6(1/2): 17–34.
2.
AtkinsDEand National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure (2003) Revolutionizing Science and Engineering Through Cyberinfrastructure: Report of the National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructures. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.
3.
BellGHeyTSzalayA (2009) Beyond the data deluge. Science323: 1297–1298.
BorgmanCL (2007) Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
6.
BorgmanCLWallisJCEnyedyN (2006) Building digital libraries for scientific data: An exploratory study of data practices in habitat ecology. Unpublished paper presented at the 10th European Conference on Digital Libraries, Alicante, Spain (17–22 September).
7.
BorgmanCLWallisJCEnyedyN (2007) Little science confronts the data deluge: Habitat ecology, embedded sensor networks, and digital libraries. International Journal on Digital Libraries7(1/2): 17–30.
8.
BowkerGC (2000) Biodiversity datadiversity. Social Studies of Science30(5): 643–683.
9.
BowkerGC (2005) Memory Practices in the Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
10.
BowkerGCStarSL (1999) Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
11.
BraudelF (1975) The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. New York: Harper & Row.
12.
BucklandMK (1991) Information as thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science42(5): 351–360.
13.
BucklandMK (1997) What is a ‘document’?Journal of the American Society for Information Science48(9): 804–809.
14.
ClarkHH (1992) Arenas of Language Use. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
15.
ClarkHHBrennanSE (1991) Grounding in communication. In: ResnickLLevineJTeasleyS (eds) Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. Washington, DC: Amerian Psychological Association, 127–149.
16.
CMIP5 (n.d.) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 – Overview. Available at http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/ (accessed 16 April 2011).
17.
CollinsHM (1985) Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. London and Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
18.
CollinsHMPinchT (1993) The Golem: What Everyone Should Know about Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19.
DunlapR (2008) The Earth System Curator: Metadata Infrastructure for Climate Modeling. SIParCS Final Presentation, Boulder, CO, 4 August 2008Available at www.earthsystemcurator.org/presentations/pres_0808_rocky.ppt (accessed 13 April 2011).
20.
DunlapRMarkLRugaberSBalajiVChastangJCinquiniL. (2008) Earth system curator: Metadata infrastructure for climate modeling. Earth Science Informatics1(3): 131–149.
21.
EdwardsPN (2010) A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
22.
ElichirigoityF (1999) Planet Management: Limits to Growth, Computer Simulation, and the Emergence of Global Spaces. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
23.
GalisonPL (1996) Computer simulations and the trading zone. In: GalisonPLStumpDJ (eds) The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, and Power. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 118–157.
HaberlHErbKHKrausmannFGaubeVBondeauAPlutzarC. (2007) Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth’s terrestrial ecosystems. Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences104(31): 12942–12947.
26.
HankinSBlowerJDCarvalTCaseyKSDonlonCLauretO. (2009) NetCDF-CF-OPeNDAP: Standards for ocean data interoperability and object lessons for community data standards processes. Community White Paper for Ocean Observations9.
27.
HeyTTansleySTolleK (eds) (2009) The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Research. Available at http://fourthparadigm.org (accessed 13 April 2011).
28.
HeyTTrefethenA (2003) The data deluge: An e-science perspective. In: BermanFFoxGHeyAJG (eds) Grid Computing: Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality. Chichester: Wiley, 809–824.
29.
HeyTTrefethenAE (2005) Cyberinfrastructure for e-Science. Science308(5723): 817–821.
30.
HobbieJECarpenterSRGrimmNBGoszJRSeastedtTR (2003) The US long term ecological research program. BioScience53(1): 21.
31.
JonesMBBerkleyCBojilovaJSchildhauerM (2001) Managing scientific metadata. IEEE Internet Computing5(5): 59–68.
32.
JonesMBSchildhauerMPReichmanOJBowersS (2006) The new bioinformatics: Integrating ecological data from the gene to the biosphere. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics37(1): 519–544.
33.
KevlesDJ (1998) The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character. New York: WW Norton.
34.
LatourB (1987) Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
35.
LavoieBF (2004) The Open Archival Information System reference model: Introductory guide. Microform and Imaging Review33(2): 68–81.
36.
LawrenceBNLowryRMillerPSnaithHWoolfA (2009) Information in environmental data grids. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (A): Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences367(1890): 1003–1014.
37.
MaibachEWilsonKWitteJ (2010) A National Survey of Television Meteorologists about Climate Change: Preliminary Findings. Fairfax, VA: Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University.
38.
MayernikMSWallisJCPepeABorgmanCL (2008) Whose data do you trust? Integrity issues in the preservation of scientific data. Unpublished paper presented at the iConference, Los Angeles, CA (29 February).
39.
MicheletJ (1930) Oeuvres de Michelet 1, Autobiographie, Introduction à l’Histoire Universelle (ChabotH, trans.). Paris: Larousse.
40.
MichenerWK (2006) Meta-information concepts for ecological data management. Ecological Informatics1(1): 3–7.
41.
National Research Council (1997) Bits of Power: Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
42.
O’BrienKHankinSCallahanJBalajiVSchweitzerRMcleanJ. (2004) The GFDL data portal: A doorway to sharing model outputs. Unpublished paper presented at the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco (13–17 December).
43.
OlsonGMAtkinsDClauerRWeymouthTPrakashAFinholtT. (2001) Technology to support distributed team science: The first phase of the Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory (UARC). In: OlsonGMaloneTSmithJ (eds) Coordination Theory and Collaboration Technology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 761–784.
OreskesN (2004) Beyond the ivory tower: The scientific consensus on climate change. Science306(5702): 1686.
46.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (n.d.) The Public Domain of Digital Research Data. Follow-up Group on Issues of Access to Publicly Funded Research Data. Available at http://dataaccess.ucsd.edu (accessed 16 April 2011).
47.
PCMDI (n.d.) Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison. Available at www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ (accessed 16 April 2011).
SacksHSchegloffEAJeffersonG (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation. Language50(4): 696–735.
51.
SandersonEWJaitehMLevyMARedfordKHWanneboAVWoolmerG (2002) The human footprint and the last of the wild. BioScience52(10): 891–904.
52.
SerresM (1995) The Natural Contract (MacArthurEPaulsonW, trans.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
53.
SerresM (2007) A return to the natural contract. In: BindéJ (ed.) Making Peace with the Earth: What Future for the Human Species and the Planet. Paris: UNESCO Pub.; Berghahn Books, 129–137.
54.
ShapinSSchafferS (1985) Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
55.
SignellRPCarnielSChiggiatoJJanekovicIPullenJSherwoodCR (2008) Collaboration tools and techniques for large model datasets. Journal of Marine Systems69(1/2): 154–161.
56.
StarSLGriesemerJ (1989) Institutional ecology, ‘translations’, and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–1939. Social Studies of Science19(3): 387–420.
57.
StarSLRuhlederK (1994) Steps towards an ecology of infrastructure: Complex problems in design and access for large-scale collaborative systems. Proceedings of the 1994 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. New York: Association for Computing Machinery.
58.
StrathernM (2004) Commons and Borderlands: Working Papers on Interdisciplinarity, Accountability and the Flow of Knowledge. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing.
59.
SuchmanLA (1987) Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication. New York: Cambridge University Press.
60.
SuchmanLA (2007) Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions (2nd edn). New York: Cambridge University Press.
61.
VaughanD (1996) The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
62.
WallersteinI (1976) A world-system perspective on the social sciences.British Journal of Sociology27(3): 343–352.
63.
WallisJCBorgmanCLMayernikMSPepeA (2008) Moving archival practices upstream: An exploration of the life cycle of ecological sensing data in collaborative field research. International Journal of Digital Curation3(1): 114–126.
64.
WallisJCBorgmanCLMayernikMSPepeARamanathanNHansenM (2007) Know thy sensor: Trust, data quality, and data integrity in scientific digital libraries. Unpublished paper presented at the 11th European Conference on Digital Libraries, Budapest, Hungary.
65.
WallisJCMayernikMSBorgmanCLPepeA (2010) Digital libraries for scientific data discovery and reuse: From vision to practical reality. Paper presented at the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Brisbane, Australia (21–25 June).
66.
WayneL (2005) Institutionalize metadata before it institutionalizes you. Reston, VA: Federal Geographic Data Committee. Available at www.fgdc.gov/metadata/metadata-publications-list (accessed 14 April 2011).
67.
ZimmermanAS (2003) Data Sharing and Secondary Use of Scientific Data: Experiences of Ecologists. Unpublished PhD dissertation. School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
68.
ZimmermanAS (2007) Not by metadata alone: The use of diverse forms of knowledge to locate data for reuse. International Journal on Digital Libraries7(1): 5–16.
