​Tracking the Status and Increasing the Visibility of LDP Rescued Datasets

 Data Rescue Intern: Hannah Friesen
Since 2020, more than 70 data rescue internships have been completed, helping to save ecological, evolutionary, and environmental datasets from disappearing. During my internship, I focused on tracking the status of these previous projects and increasing the visibility of their resulting datasets. A major part of my role was outreach, following up with past data partners to help finalize datasets and collecting spotlight stories from interns for the LDP website (like this one!)

Figure: Web map of rescued data projects.

​Because data partners could choose where to archive the datasets, they were deposited across a variety of platforms including Borealis, Dryad, Figshare, DataStream, and Open Government Canada. To bring them together, I created an interactive web map on the CIEE website (HERE), allowing users to explore LDP projects by location and taxa. The map also lists project partners and interns, and compiles links to repositories, spotlight stories, and related publications all in one place. It was very satisfying to see a visual spread of the diversity of data rescued across Canada (and around the world)!
This internship offered a unique perspective on the life cycle of research data, from recovery and cleaning to long-term preservation and accessibility. I enjoyed working with the Living Data team and corresponding with data partners and interns. It was great to learn about the wide variety of projects and rewarding to play a role in ensuring that their contributions are recorded and remain accessible for the future.