Researchers in the School of Information and Library Science have become part of a multi-million dollar effort to create a national data network.
Plans for the infrastructure are in their earliest stages, with researchers saying they don’t know exactly how far their research could take them.
“The significance of the grant is bigger than the actual monetary award as it position’s Carolina as a leader in data management,” said Karen Green, communications director of the Renaissance Computing Institute, which will be involved in the research.
The University’s inclusion in the $8 million grant from the National Science Foundation underlines its prominence in the field of information science, said Barbara Entwisle, UNC’s vice chancellor for research.
“UNC is the place to come for library and information science,” she said.
The University will receive about $4 million of the $8 million during five years awarded to the DataNet Federation Consortium, as the lead institution and home to the Data Intensive Cyber Environments (DICE) Center.
The consortium is made up of researchers from seven additional research universities.
The technological tool used to create the national network, — the integrated Rule Oriented Data System — is already being put to use by countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom to build their own data infrastructures.
The consortium will principally address the data management needs of six science and engineering disciplines, but the technology being developed has other significant uses.