Partnerships for Data Innovations (PDI): Facilitating data stewardship and catalyzing research engagement in the digital age

Authors: Harmel, Robert; Kleinman, Peter; Eve, Marlen; Ippolito, James; Beebout, Sarah; Delgado, Jorge; Vandenberg, Bruce; Buser, Michael

Submitted to: Agricultural & Environmental Letters
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/14/2021
Publication Date: 10/6/2021
Citation: Harmel, R.D., Kleinman, P.J., Eve, M.D., Ippolito, J.A., Beebout, S.E., Delgado, J.A., Vandenberg, B.C., Buser, M.D. 2021. Partnerships for Data Innovations (PDI): Facilitating data stewardship and catalyzing research engagement in the digital age. Agricultural & Environmental Letters. 6. Article e20055. https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20055.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20055

Interpretive Summary: For agriculture to achieve the potential offered by data-driven technologies in the Digital Age, profound changes are needed in the full spectrum of data management along with a transformation to a culture of data stewardship. This will require a fundamental shift in the priorities of individual researchers, institutions, and agencies. USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) established the Partnerships for Data Innovation (PDI) to achieve this transformation from within, mitigate understandable resistance, and catalyze transdisciplinary collaboration. From the onset, PDI has integrated its customers and partners in developing and implementing state-of-the-art digital tools and has effectively leveraged the capabilities of proprietary and non-proprietary off-the-shelf technologies when advantageous. Empowered by this active inclusive partnership, PDI has generated databases, data stewardship tools, and digital solutions – most of which are publicly available - with the goal of accelerating research through standardization, automation, and integration. These products are shared on a “Digital Workbench” platform for agricultural research engagement, interaction, and cooperation. In its short life, PDI has transformed more than 100 projects, from projects catalyzing collaborative efforts and underpinning information management to those salvaging data management software that is near its end-of-life and making it publicly available. With customers as partners, and expanded partnerships across government, private sector, and university institutions, PDI has sought to cultivate an ethic of data management from collection to curation and the foundation of a data stewardship culture within USDA-ARS and across the agricultural research community.

Technical Abstract: For agriculture to achieve the potential offered by data-driven technologies in the Digital Age, profound changes are needed in the full spectrum of data management along with a transformation to a culture of data stewardship. This will require a fundamental shift in the priorities of individual researchers, institutions, and agencies. USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) established the Partnerships for Data Innovation (PDI) to achieve this transformation from within, mitigate understandable resistance, and catalyze transdisciplinary collaboration. From the onset, PDI has integrated its customers and partners in developing and implementing state-of-the-art digital tools and has effectively leveraged the capabilities of proprietary and non-proprietary off-the-shelf technologies when advantageous. Empowered by this active inclusive partnership, PDI has generated databases, data stewardship tools, and digital solutions – which are open or open-source where appropriate - with the goal of accelerating research through standardization, automation, and integration. These products are shared on a “Digital Workbench” platform for agricultural research engagement, interaction, and cooperation. In its short life, PDI has transformed more than 100 projects, from projects catalyzing collaborative efforts and underpinning information management to those salvaging end-of-life data management software and making it publicly available. With customers as partners, and expanded partnerships across government, private sector, and university institutions, PDI has sought to cultivate an ethic of data management from collection to curation and the foundation of a data stewardship culture within USDA-ARS and across the agricultural research community.