Data at SMRU (Sea Mammal Research Unit @ St Andrews)

Spent this afternoon discussing research data with researchers and technicians at SMRU (Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews).

Fascinating insight into the procedures and data being created and who uses the data .. how and why ?

We looked  at Seal pup population data produced over several years and used to inform the annual  SCOS reports to the Government as well as at temperature and salinity data from tags attached to seals and other mammals.

The challenge is to find metadata detailed enough for the user looking for information but still with a high degree of commonality across varying data sets and disciplines. MEDIN is being explored by the British Oceanographic Data Centre as a candidate and we are aiming to work with them on the project using the SMRU data sets to pilot the approach.