R2R: FAIR and open data management services for the academic research fleet 2025-2029

Since 2009, the Rolling Deck to Repository program (R2R) has provided a comprehensive shore-side data management system for underway data from the US Academic Research Fleet. Each vessel routinely operates a suite of “underway” environmental sensors that continuously collect a wide variety of meteorological, water column, and seafloor/subseafloor data, regardless of the specific mission of each cruise.

Following open science goals and FAIR principles for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable data, R2R provides preservation, documentation, accessibility, and enhanced usability of these data. With R2R, these data, collected at significant expense, become available to support research, education, policy, and resource management, now and into the future.

The University of California-San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD-SIO) proposes an additional 5-years of ongoing operations for R2R covering: collecting post-cruise data from vessel operators; organizing data and metadata; assessing data quality on select data types; creating select standardized data products; supporting human and API discovery and access; and submitting data to NCEI for additional long-term archive, access, and inclusion in global products (for data types accepted by NCEI). R2R will continue supporting at-sea event logging and the near-real-time quality assessment of underway meteorological and surface ocean measurements through the Shipboard Automated Meteorological and Oceanographic System (SAMOS) data center.

In addition, we propose new efforts around a needed cyberinfrastructure revamp, a collaboration with vessel operators / technicians to improve data FAIR-ness at the point of collection; machine-readable near-real-time operational event logs to improve data breakout and management; and piloting cloud-based access and analysis capabilities.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.