Using geospatial and information science to facilitate the discovery and access of ocean science data

The ability to discover and access available ocean data and information is a major challenge for the ocean science community. This challenge has been recognized by the United States government policies that require science data be current, accessible and consistent with certain standards. This paper describes how the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management designed and developed a system that utilizes geospatial and information science to allows scientific data and information from its Environmental Studies program dating back to 1973 to be easily accessible and discoverable via the Internet.