10.1.1 Dr. Wilson presented an overview of the plans GOSIC, a center being established at the University of Delaware College of Marine Studies in Lewes, Delaware, USA. GOSIC is funded for three years and is staffed with a mix of scientific and data management expertise. The Center intends to hold up-to-date information on the initial operational systems that are established in the G3OS, on the data flows and data management plans for these operational systems, and on the data sets that are identified by the science panels as relevant to the requirements of the systems.
10.1.2 GOSIC is being designed to primarily serve the needs of the users. However, it will also serve the needs of DIMP and the G3OS science panels for managing the data flows. The Center will include metadata and contact information at all levels to facilitate user understanding and access. It will also help to support the evaluation and feedback functions that JDIMP is building into its data management model.
10.1.3 In building and maintaining its databases, GOSIC will require support from the centers that hold the actual data. A methodology is under development to automate this procedure, both at GOSIC and in the centers holding the data. The methodology involves the centers that hold the data preparing and maintaining simple files with a few specific fields identified by tags that hold the information required for the GOSIC database. The GOSIC computer will periodically access and process these files to update its database. It is recognised that these files must be simple and easily prepared by automated means. It is anticipated that some data centers holding TOPC data will participate in a test and development phase to evaluate the feasibility of this scheme.
10.1.4 The selection of existing data sets relevant to terrestrial aspects of climate by TOPC is of significant assistance to GOSIC. The database of existing data sets is an important element of GOSIC and will benefit from the involvement of the TOPC subject experts.
10.1.5 The TOPC meeting participants supported the GOSIC program as presented and agreed to continue to advise GOSIC on the development of the information center.
10.1.6 Regarding co-operation with JDIMP, the meeting participants agreed with the new focus for JDIMP as described by Dr. Wilson (Section 2.3). In addition, it was emphasised that JDIMP must provide strong leadership on a number of cross-cutting and data management issues that were outside the expertise of the science panels. In particular, JDIMP should take an active lead in providing the steering committees of the observation systems with the necessary information and advice on problems with free/inexpensive access to scientific data to enable them to put forth strong arguments to achieve this access.
