LTER - National Biological Information Infrastructure
The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) entered in 2004 in a five year cooperative agreement with LTER. The NBII-LTER cooperative agreement is the result of efforts championed by W. Michener dating back to 2000. The overarching goal is the interoperability of both networks: Sharing the wealth on information on ecological and biological resources, and offer those to educators,, scientists, lawmakers and the public in general. An initial charge was implement a crosswalk between the Biological Data Profile –the NBII metadata standard- and the Ecological Metadata Language –the LTER metadata standard- as means for data integration. Other outcomes such as sharing of expertise and guidance, technological resources and educational opportunities were outlined. A shared full-time position (San Gil’s) was created to implement part of the LTER-NBII cooperative agreement goals.
