Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 53
7
Infrastructure and Intellectual Capital
This chapter considers whether the draft ORPP adequately addresses the three broad categories of
resources physical infrastructure, information infrastructure, and intellectual capital needed to ensure
that the priorities delineated under the six themes of the ORPP are achieved.
PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
In general, the draft plan successfully lists most of the types of physical infrastructure that will be
required to achieve the ORPP priorities: vessels, earth-sensing satellites, buoys, unmanned vehicles, new
sensors (particularly aimed at biological and chemical ocean variables), and more. It also mentions,
correctly, various needs for more widespread deployments of many of these tools, and integrations of
their measurements. However, as it stands, the draft does not go beyond the stages of listing and
mentioning. It does not provide goals and objectives that are connected to the stated priorities nor does it
delve substantially into implementation-related specifics such as numbers of sensors or vehicles,
deployment patterns, and spatial and temporal sampling coverage with respect to the six themes and
priorities. Consequently, it is not possible, at this stage, to answer the question of whether the plan
"adequately" considers these tools (Task 7).
To define the adequacy of the physical infrastructure requires that the ORPP provide the
following information or state the need for incorporation of the following information within the
implementation plan that would be aligned with the ORPP.
· Delineate the specific objectives to be accomplished for each ocean research priority, to include
targeted spatial and temporal scales and acceptable margins of error for each objective;
· Define the state of the science associated with each objective. This is needed to serve as a
baseline and springboard for planning and prioritizing ocean research directions; and the
subsequent need for physical infrastructure, whether existing or non-existing, to address each
direction;
· Specify the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary purposes for physical infrastructure across and
within research objectives. This determination is warranted to avoid overlap and redundancy of
physical infrastructure within and across the ocean priorities; and to make judicious and cost-
effective use of existing and planned data and information inventories; and
· Inventory existing physical infrastructure, its adequacy, condition, and long-term viability for the
purpose of accomplishing the ocean research priorities and objectives. Existing surveys should
be used to facilitate the development of this inventory.
Unless this information is made available within the ORPP or its Implementation Strategy, it will not be
possible to accurately determine the adequacy of existing physical infrastructure.
Prepublication 53
OCR for page 54
INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Research needed to address the recommended ocean research priorities will require infrastructure
to model, assimilate, analyze, and broadly exchange data and information at levels that currently do not
exist. This information infrastructure includes the requisite hardware; software, to include models and
visualization tools; and personnel to ensure that massive amounts of disciplinary and interdisciplinary
ocean sciences data are available for purposes of research, decision and policy making, and public use.
To ensure the capability to store massive amounts of data for long periods of time, decadal and beyond,
the required information infrastructure will need to be expandable in architecture.
The discussion here essentially parallels that given above regarding physical infrastructure. Plans
exist which address needed information infrastructure for ocean sciences, including state-of-the-science
computational resources and an ocean observing system designed to meet the current needs of the nation
(e.g., NRC, 2000c; OITI Steering Committee, 2002); however, these plans were not written within the
context of the ocean research priorities outlined here. While a discussion of the infrastructure
recommended in these and other reports may be informative, it cannot address the committee's specific
task (Task 7) regarding the "adequacy." Therefore, the existing plans can only serve as guidance in
defining information infrastructure and not as the basis to determine the adequacy of the information
infrastructure cited in the ORPP, for reasons discussed in the previous section.
INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL
Education was highlighted as an important and necessary component of a visionary ocean plan by
the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy in An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century (2004). In the cover
letter of An Ocean Blueprint, addressed to the President of the United States, the Majority Leader of the
U.S. Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, it states that, "formal and informal ocean
education should be strengthened to better engage the general public, cultivate a broad stewardship ethic,
and prepare a new generation of leaders to meet future ocean policy challenges." While the objective of
educating the people of this nation regarding the ocean is widely acknowledged and accepted, and it is
mentioned under each of the six ORPP themes, the draft ORPP is less than clear on the intellectual capital
required to understand, manage, steward, and sustain the oceans; and to benefit from them. It is clear,
however, that substantial scientific, technological, workforce development, and educational expertise
aimed at each theme will be needed once specific goals, objectives, and time lines are established.
As in the preceding two sections, the draft plan contains mention, but scant quantitative
assessment, of the need for intellectual capital or the future workforce that will be required to carry out
the research and related work envisioned in the plan. Short shrift also is given to the social science
workforce needs that are integral to the plan. The needs run from Ph.D. researchers to electronics
technicians to science managers to experts in formal and informal education/outreach, social science, and
economics, and the overall adequacy or inadequacy of existing preparation for these needs is surely
different from type to type.
Much larger national and international issues regarding the enhancement and competitiveness of
the science and technology enterprise, well beyond the ORPP, intersect here. Global competitiveness,
reviewed in the 2006 NRC report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, involves the technical
sophistication of the U.S. workforce, and the ocean sector of that workforce is no exception. The ocean-
related workforce draws upon, but is a small fraction of, the national workforce that will need substantial
scientific and technological capabilities.
While a discussion of the myriad existing reports regarding the need for intellectual capital in this
nation may be informative, it cannot address the specific question regarding the adequacy of the
intellectual capital infrastructure for reasons discussed in the previous sections. It is known, however,
Prepublication 54
OCR for page 55
that the existence and expansion of the U.S. H1-B4 visa program is an indicator of this nation's present
need for additional intellectual capital, capital which currently does not exist in this country. Therefore,
additional statements and recommendations regarding intellectual capital await the development of the
implementation strategy, including its goals, objectives, timetable, and budget.
ADDRESSING THE STATEMENTS OF TASK
Statement of Task (7): Does the plan adequately consider the following resources: physical
infrastructure, information infrastructure, and intellectual capital?
Because a definitive statement regarding the adequacy of infrastructure and intellectual capital
cannot be made without an examination of the implementation strategy, the ocean research priorities plan
does not adequately consider physical infrastructure, information infrastructure, and intellectual capital.
An implementation plan typically includes goals, objectives, needs assessments, and budget elements
that are essential for evaluating whether resources are adequate to address the research priorities.
To provide the information needed to determine "adequacy," a clear and focused delineation of
goals and objectives as aligned with the themes, priorities, and near-term priorities is needed. In addition
to the statement of objectives, further information is required to detail the specific requirements of each
objective, to include spatial and temporal scales of data and information and their "acceptable" margins of
error, and the time period during which the objectives are to be accomplished. This level of information
was not provided in the draft ORPP.
RECOMMENDATIONS
· The final plan should move towards greater specificity in the area of infrastructure in order
to command serious attention from its intended audiences. The plan, to be credible, needs to
move beyond mere lists of types of infrastructure required. Many prior thoughtful and more
detailed plans and reports on important aspects (e.g., fleet renewal, earth sensing satellites,
national and global ocean observing systems, computational or information technology
requirements and intellectual capital) exist that should be taken into account for current status,
trends, and needs/requirements. This should be done notwithstanding the fact that improving the
plan in this manner necessarily involves matters of implementation that currently lie outside the
draft plan.
· The ORPP should take heed of broader workforce issues and information sources in
revising, clarifying, and improving its projections of needs in this area. Relevant prior work
and reports pertaining to physical and information infrastructure exist largely within the ocean or
earth science communities. The same is now true for information on the status and trends of the
broad national technological, scientific, and social scientific workforce from which the varieties
of "intellectual capital" implicitly required under the ORPP will have to be drawn (e.g., NRC,
2006).
· The ORPP should place greater emphasis on education as one of the cross-cutting themes of
the ORPP. The committee has previously recommended (in chapter 3) that the concept of cross-
cuts be reintroduced in the ORPP and feels that education should be included as one of these
cross-cuts. Education is fundamental to the development of the intellectual capital required to
meet the needs of the ORPP and underpins the overarching ability to successfully achieve the
ocean research priorities. Without the examination of education as an integral interdisciplinary
4The H-1B visa program allows noncitizens into the U.S. for temporary employment in a specialty occupation,
including engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, and education.
Prepublication 55
OCR for page 56
and multidisciplinary component of the implementation strategy and budget for the themes and
priorities, it is impractical to engage in a discussion regarding the adequacy of infrastructure and
intellectual capital.
Prepublication 56
Representative terms from entire chapter:
physical infrastructure
