The Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) Integrated Data Management Network (IDMN) worked with over 20 organizations over two years to bring coherence to the LCC information management landscape. Specifically, the IDMN Network tried to address ways LCC partners implemented the basic building blocks of data management. Issues addressed included building and sharing science products with partners, securely storing those data for the long term, and evaluating ways to get those outputs to cooperators and eventually the public. Over the course of the IDMN project, the scope was expanded to address ways to track projects that produced scientific outputs, as well as build communications products and tools to help community members work together more efficiently. These efforts considered and learned from other landscape level cooperative efforts, especially the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center network of Climate Science Centers (CSCs). The IDMN project assembled six teams of information management, natural resources, and communications specialists to evaluate and test different approaches. From this effort, the teams defined options for different LCCs and other landscape-level project teams to not just coexist, but also constructively work together. One critical element of the IDMN project was an exploration of partnerships organized around data sharing and integration. Concepts included facilitating the use of new integration options, collaborating on guidance documentation, and fostering hardware and software solution partnerships among LCCs and CSCs. The integration pathways focused on: Assessing user priorities; utilizing metadata and data standards to help groups work together in specific domains; discovering and building tools that let projects take advantage of partner capabilities; assessing how groups could visualize outputs; and, promoting concepts to help users with project tracking and software tools. The IDMN project ended in early FY15, but the team efforts continue. Thanks to the collaborations built as a part of this project, the LCCs are seeing more and more linkages among data management and integration professionals. It is clear that the efforts of the IDMN project have made an impact on every agency and organization working with the Landscape Conservation Cooperative network.
