Abstract
Objective: To ensure that cyberinfrastructure for sharing scientific data is useful, system developers need to understand what scientists and other intended users do as well as the attitudes and beliefs that shape their behaviours. This paper introduces personas — detailed descriptions of an “archetypical user of a system” — as an approach for capturing and sharing knowledge about potential system users. Setting: Personas were developed to support development of the ‘DataONE’ (Data Observation Network for Earth) project, which has developed and deployed a sustainable long-term data preservation and access network to ensure the preservation and access to multi-scale, multi-discipline, and multi-national environmental and biological science data (https://www.dataone.org/what-dataone) (Michener et al. 2012). Methods: Personas for DataONE were developed based on data from surveys and interviews done by members of DataONE working groups along with sources such as usage scenarios for DataONE and the Data Conservancy project and the Purdue Data Curation Profiles (Witt et al. 2009). Results: A total of 11 personas were developed: five for various kinds of research scientists (e.g., at different career stages and using different types of data); a science data librarian; and five for secondary roles. Conclusion: Personas were found to be useful for helping developers and other project members to understand users and their needs. The developed DataONE personas may be useful for others trying to develop systems or programs for scientists involved in data sharing.
Highlights
Name, age, and educationSun is a biologist specializing in desert tortoises
Based in part on a Data Conservancy persona written by Anne Thessen
Sun recently started working for the USGS Western Ecological Research Center, “one of 18 Centers of the Biological Resources Discipline of the U.S Geological Survey,”
Summary
Sun is a biologist specializing in desert tortoises. She did her masters and Ph.D. at California State University San Marcos. Sun recently started working for the USGS Western Ecological Research Center, “one of 18 Centers of the Biological Resources Discipline of the U.S Geological Survey,” (http://www.werc.usgs.gov/who.aspx) Her broad interest is how human activity and climate change will affect tortoise populations. She works with NGOs on conservation issues and speaks to the public on tortoises and conservation issues She collaborates with biologists at the Wildlife Research Institute (http://www.wildlife-research.org/page10.html) on a project tracking desert tortoises relocated from the expanding Fort Irwin Army Base. Sun and other members of the research team go into the field with a notebook, camera, simple instruments, and sample containers They capture and tag tortoises before collecting data about individuals such as age, weight, and sex. A number of her research subjects are radio tagged, giving her a latitude/longitude position as often as every 10 minutes
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