The introduction of the databases to the individual research institutions was not
effortless, but possible with the support provided by the Institute of Cartography in the
incipient phases of the COGEAR project. The proven methodology consisted in training the
research partners to develop and implement the databases in two separate steps. The first
step implied the training necessary to specify a database schema for the existing data. The
second step was to implement the schema in the database and to insert the data. Currently,
several partners have made available research data (e.g. seismic stations, seismic events,
boreholes, soil cracks, LiDAR data, and vibration recordings) and the number of shared
datasets continues to grow gradually. In addition, several research institutions took the
strategic decision to embed the database management systems in their research workflow as
the definition of schemas for the data and research results showed several possibilities for
improvement of the individual research workflow beyond the immediate goals of the
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COGEAR project. As consequence, the schemas continue to evolve as new data sources are
progressively added or as schemas are modified in order to support additional usage and
query scenarios.