Report from the Second SEAD User Study

Abstract

Sustainable Environment Actionable Data (SEAD) is one of five partners in the DataNet program funded by the National Science Foundation. The objective of the DataNet partnership is to build component elements of an interoperable data preservation and access network for science and engineering data. SEAD’s goal is to serve researchers addressing questions related to the complex interactions between natural and social systems. More specifically, SEAD aims to support data management and sharing and provide safe, secure storage for data created and used by scientists in the emerging field of sustainability science. The role of domain engagement in SEAD is to give stakeholders the opportunity to directly influence the design of SEAD tools, policies, and services. One way in which SEAD has engaged members of the target user community is through formal investigation of their needs and requirements. To date, two such studies have been conducted. The first was carried out in early 2012, and the second was conducted in spring 2013. This document describes the purpose, methods and findings from the second user study. This report also presents user requirements based on the results and discusses implications for future development of SEAD.