Collaborative Research: Establishing Community Standards for Underwater Video Acquisition, Tagging, Archiving and Access

DESCRIPTION: This award provides funds for a 2-day workshop to be held at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography in the Fall/Winter 2015-2016. This workshop will bring together science community stakeholders, video recording experts, and data managers and metadata specialists to develop consensus and best practices for video and complementary metadata to help move the community toward the common goal of broad public access to distributed video content for scientific research and public outreach. Video imagery is an integral part of underwater operations conducted with ROVs, HOVs, and AUVs. These data are critical for sampling, exploration, and observation activities during seafloor operations and are key records for immediate post-dive and post-cruise research by the shipboard participants. Video archives have the potential to provide broad significant scientific benefits long after data acquisition and have tremendous potential for engaging the public in exciting ocean science research. To achieve this potential, significant challenges must be addressed that will allow video archives to become accessible and include sufficient metadata to allow users to access the content relevant to their needs.