Quality Assurance Framework for the Design, Collection and Curation of Standard Data Products From a Distributed Ecology Network
Yvonne M. Buckley, Alain Finn, Aoife Molloy, Anna Mária Csergő, Elizabeth Crone, Annabel L. Smith, Bret D. Elderd, Caroline McKeon, Deborah Roach, Dylan Z. Childs, Glenda M. Wardle, María B. García, Maude Baudraz, Rachel M. Penczykowski, Roberto Salguero‐Gómez, Ruth Kelly, Satu Ramula, Anna Liisa Laine, Simone Blomberg, Johan Ehrlen, Jesús Villellas, Aveliina Helm, Christiane Roscher, Krista Raveala, Liv Norunn Hamre, Lotte Korell, Francis Q. Brearley, Siri Lie Olsen, Astrid Wingler, Joslin L. Moore, Ayco J. M. Tack, Anna Bucharova, Olav Skarpaas, Judit Bodis, Aldo Compagnoni, Sergi Munne‐Bosch, Zuzana Munzbergova, Joachim Töpper, Peter Vesk, Melanie Morales, Lizzie Wandrag, Marjo Saastamoinen, Martin Andrzejak, Pil Rasmussen, Christina Caruso, Richard Duncan, John Dwyer, Matthew Coghill, Ronny Groenteman, Meelis Pärtel, William K. Petry, Michele Lonati, Javier Puy, Jane Catford, Trevor H. Drees, Christoph Rosche, Katriona Shea, Simone Ravetto Enri, Jennifer R. Gremer, Balázs Deák, Lauchlan Fraser, Lauri Laanisto, Orsolya Valkó, Robert Drew Sieg, Benedicte Bachelot, Jennifer FirnABSTRACT
Ecological data are increasingly collected by networks of collaborators using replicated designs and methods, which can significantly improve the quality and quantity of data throughout the ecological niche and geographic range of species or communities. The coordinated generation and management of data is critical for producing datasets (Standard Data Products) across multiple sites that can be used by different researchers, over extended time periods and for multiple purposes.
We describe and use a Quality Assurance framework for the design, collection and production of reproducible Standard Data Products for distributed ecology projects. We identified six critical project elements of a Quality Assurance framework (QA1‐6) to produce ecological Standard Data Products with high immediate and future value.
We applied the Quality Assurance framework to the Plantpopnet project as a case‐study. Plantpopnet is a coordinated distributed system for population macroecology using the model species
Explicit use of Quality Assurance, project and data management tools together with standardised ecological methods facilitated the design, collection, maintenance and sustainability of high‐quality data products. We provide a Quality Assurance framework together with governance documents, code and data for a reproducible Standard Data Product. This framework supports a distributed funding model which can be sustainably applied to facilitate future research and applications of coordinated distributed ecology projects.