Organizational Informatics: Site Description Directories for Research Networks
Karen S. Baker, James W. Brunt, David Blankman · 2002
A site description directory plays a central role as a catalog for a network of research sites. Such a directory represents a keystone element in an information management system. A directory contributes to community communications both through documentation of member information and relationships as well as through design feedback elicited from participants in the ongoing process of developing the catalog system. Presentation of a description directory for networked research sites via web interfaces permits distributed, remote site data input and access. There is a dual challenge in creating an extensible directory design: first to capture relevant content and second to incorporate such a system within the work practice of the community represented to ensure its continued evolution. We present here a directory designed for the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network community