Enhancing Infrastructure Usability: Updates to the OOI Platforms and Nodes Page

OOI has implemented a series of significant updates to its Platforms and Nodes webpage, aimed at improving sensor usage traceability, infrastructure identification, and research reproducibility. These enhancements directly support the scientific community’s need for clear, accessible metadata and a more streamline connection between OOI platforms and the data they produce.

The updated Platforms and Nodes List provides a complete and structured inventory of all deployed infrastructure across the OOI’s Coastal, Global, and Cabled arrays. Each array name links to a comprehensive description of its design, geographic focus, and research themes. Individual platforms are now associated with dedicated landing pages that correspond to their official Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) which establishes a clear and citable connection between physical infrastructure and the data it generates.

These platform-specific landing pages serve as centralized reference hub for each infrastructure component. They include standardized citation guidance to support accurate attribution, direct access to relevant datasets and data portals, and detailed descriptions that place each platform in scientific and operational context. Each page also features a complete list of associated instruments, with links directing users to either the OOI Data Explorer or the appropriate data access interface, facilitating efficient navigation to raw and derived data streams.

These updates provide researchers with a more cohesive and transparent framework for data discovery and usage. By enabling precise cross-referencing of platforms, instruments, and datasets, the new infrastructure makes it easier to do many types of scientific research, including tracking changes over time, checking models against in situ data, studying specific ocean processes across platforms, and combining data from different platforms for more in-depth analysis.

The improvements reflect OOI’s ongoing commitment to making its data and infrastructure more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). By reinforcing the connection between deployed equipment and accessible data products, this update enhances reproducibility and strengthens the integrity of research conducted using OOI assets.

Researchers are encouraged to explore the updated Platforms and Nodes page and incorporate these resources into their data workflows, citation practices, and project planning. These tools aim to simplify the process of finding data while also enabling more detailed and meaningful research using OOI’s distributed network of ocean observing systems.