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With the growing availability and accessibility of big data in ecology, we face an urgent need to train the next generation of scientists in data science practices and tools. One of the biggest barriers for implementing a data-driven curriculum in undergraduate classrooms is the lack of training and support for educators to develop their own skills and time to incorporate these principles into existing courses or develop new ones. Alongside the research goals of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), providing education and training are key components for building a community of scientists and users equipped to utilize large-scale ecological and environmental data. To address this need, the NEON Data Education Fellows program formed as a collaborative Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN) between scientists from NEON and university faculty interested in using NEON data and resources in their ecology classrooms. Like other FMNs, this group has two main goals: 1) to provide tools, resources, and support for faculty interested in developing data-driven curriculum, and (2) to make teaching materials that have been implemented and tested in the classroom available as open educational resources for other educators. We hosted this program using an open education and collaboration platform from the Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES) project. Here, we share lessons learned from facilitating five FMN cohorts and emphasize the successes, pitfalls, and opportunities for developing open education resources through community-driven collaborations.
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Harnessing the NEON data revolution to advance open environmental science with a diverse and data‐capable community
Abstract It is a critical time to reflect on the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) science to date as well as envision what research can be done right now with NEON (and other) data and what training is needed to enable a diverse user community. NEON became fully operational in May 2019 and has pivoted from planning and construction to operation and maintenance. In this overview, the history of and foundational thinking around NEON are discussed. A framework of open science is described with a discussion of how NEON can be situated as part of a larger data constellation—across existing networks and different suites of ecological measurements and sensors. Next, a synthesis of early NEON science, based on >100 existing publications, funded proposal efforts, and emergent science at the very first NEON Science Summit (hosted by Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder in October 2019) is provided. Key questions that the ecology community will address with NEON data in the next 10 yr are outlined, from understanding drivers of biodiversity across spatial and temporal scales to defining complex feedback mechanisms in human–environmental systems. Last, the essential elements needed to engage and support a diverse and inclusive NEON user community are highlighted: training resources and tools that are openly available, funding for broad community engagement initiatives, and a mechanism to share and advertise those opportunities. NEON users require both the skills to work with NEON data and the ecological or environmental science domain knowledge to understand and interpret them. This paper synthesizes early directions in the community’s use of NEON data, and opportunities for the next 10 yr of NEON operations in emergent science themes, open science best practices, education and training, and community building.
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- PAR ID:
- 10447949
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecosphere
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 2150-8925
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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