Introducing IMOS  >  Facilities  >  eMarine Information Infrastructure (eMII)

eMarine Information Infrastructure (eMII)

Marine data and information are the main products of IMOS, and data management is therefore a central element to the project's success. eMII will provide a single integrative framework for data and information management that will allow discovery and access of the data by scientists, managers and the public. Data will be archived within the Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN), which is a distributed data storage and discovery network based at leading Australian marine research facilities.

The initial strategy will be to focus on defining specific data streams, and then developing end-to-end protocols, standards and systems to join the related observing systems into a unified data storage and access framework. A set of data products combining data across observations on regional and national scales will ultimately be developed, as well as tools that facilitate the integration and analysis of data. 

Data storage and retrieval in IMOS is designed to be interoperable with other national and international programs. Thus, it will be possible to integrate data from sources outside IMOS into IMOS data products, and IMOS data will also be exported to international programs such as Argo.

eMII is based at the University of Tasmania, located in Hobart, Tasmania. eMII Head office staff coordinate the handling of data and organise its storage within the AODN on an IMOS-wide basis. Further staff members associated with each of the IMOS facilities will develop specialised protocols for data management, and will oversee data quality control. Data discovery will be through the AODN portal, facility websites, and through more general internet-based portals.

  • eMII will host, manage and archive data produced by the other IMOS facilities.
  • eMII will provide the standards, protocols and systems to integrate the data and related information into a number of conformal frameworks, and will provide the tools to access and utilise the data.
  • For some kinds of data, eMII will provide data products as web services and web features for processing, integration and visualisation of data.
  • It will be possible to integrate data from sources outside IMOS into IMOS data products, and to export IMOS data to international programs.