obis renewal proposal coml ssc hangzhou, 25 may 2008
TRANSCRIPT
OBIS renewal proposal
CoML SSC
Hangzhou, 25 May 2008
Outline
• Review of Draft Renewal Proposal: Funding and Long term Governance Issues– Discussion note– Part of GB Notes– Priority issues
• Outcomes of Governing Board Meeting, 28-29 April – GB notes
• Outcomes of Management Committee Meeting, 27-29 February
Draft renewal proposal
• Executive Summary (1 page)• Context
– Long-term project goals and scope– Collaborative links– Accomplishments to date
• Proposed work– Change governance: sustainability– Content– Technical– Education and outreach
• Project Outcomes• Budget, budget justification (including matching funds)
Outcomes
• Metrics– 240,000 (?) species with at least one distribution record– At least one observation in each one-degree cell that has been
sampled– Range maps, EoL pages, interoperability with other
organisations (BOLD, FAO, IOOS…)…• Measure of success
– Completeness of database– Visibility and use– OBIS known and used by scientists as source of data, and as
repository (data as publication)– As a result, OBIS is sustainable
• Needs careful checking against expectations• Needs timeline
Funding
• Sloan– 2008-2010 funding not sufficient for core operations at
the secretariat
• Several RONs sustainable• Several small iOBIS proposals successful
– Several larger ones were not (IOOS)– Several submitted
• ATOL in collaboration with EoL
– Several planned, proposal or an advanced draft will be attached to the proposal for Sloan
Situation at RONs
• Most of RONS sustainable– Part of core activity of host institute– Successful proposals– Some RONs have limited activity because of lack of
resources
• Some RONs would be able to sponsor participation in OBIS Network– Attending meetings…
• Only one RON suggested contributing to sustainability of central facilities (‘iOBIS’)
Funding: proposals
• NSF– RNC to maintain RON network– BDI to maintain secretariat– INTEROP to create interoperability with US agencies
like NASA and NOAA– DataNet?
• JRS Biodiversity Foundation– QC/QA protocols in RONs
• NATO ARW Grant– Set up RON for ex-USSR
Develop as a global infrastructure
• OBIS is infrastructure– Core activities should not be critically dependent on project
funds– (But no one wants to pay for infrastructure)
• USA– Discussions with IOOS
• Environmental data• Document QC procedures• Ongoing dialog with DMAC
– Discussions with NSF• DataNet• OOI?
• Europe: LifeWatch• International: GEO BON
Sustainability implies staff
• Minimum staff required to run project sustainably– Redundancy in tasks– Critical mass– More data and products is more visibility
• Core staff: 3-4 people -> 1.5 M to 2010
• Ideal staff: 6-7 people -> 2 M
• Available -> 0.9 M
Staff at the secretariat
• ExDir– Intellectual guidance– Scientific development and communications
• Portal Manager– Oversee operations
• Data Managers– Data Management including QA/QC
• Web site manager• IT support• Administrative support
Change governance
• Different models discussed– See separate list
• OBIS internal governance– Migrate from IC to GB
• Process started with creation of GB– First meeting in Rome
Governance structure
Governing Board
Executive Committee
Executive Director
Managers Committee Science Council
Secretariat
Organisational models• SAFHOS
– country donations + fees for services + research contracts• MBARI
– endowment + research grants• ASFA
– nodes self-funded, FAO hosts secretariat– Some nodes assisted by secretariat– Resources through collaboration with commercial partner
• GBIF– country membership fees
• SCOR– country donations
• FishBase– MoU between partner organisations + research contracts
Model proposed by GB
• Closest to ASFA• IOC becomes OBIS’ parent organisation
– Need to investigate implications on governance and operations (‘blueprint’)
– Will come with prestige but not funding• Physical host not necessarily IOC
– Rutgers University?• Creating certificate course on OBI
– VLIZ/IODE, SDSC, Australia, Canada• Strong, active OBIS nodes
– GBIF• Or as (co-)parent organisation?
OBIS priority issues
• Rewarding data contributors
• Data rescue
• Multilingual issues/internationalization
• Data contribution from CoML
• Visualization
Rewarding data contributors
• By giving feedback from quality control procedures• Integrating data in global dataset and returning
integrated dataset• Giving visibility
– Through metadata– Create thematic portals, selectively showing data from the full
OBIS data holdings, depending on the context (e.g. HABs, invasive species)
• Make data citeable– Work with GCMD and others on standard format for data citation– Make deposition of data a requirement for publication– Citation index for data
• Outreach: not necessarily to large public, is already done effectively by other groups
Data rescue
• Work with communities of experts in different parts of the world to identify data sources to be mined
• Work with GCMD and others to set up a system for discovery-type metadata, also for datasets not (yet) available through OBIS
• Organise competitive programme of funding to rescue data; criteria are volume and quality of data, and gaps in data already available
Internationalization
• Translate OBIS web pages in different languages– Suggestion of GB: UN languages– MC: has done Chinese and Portuguese
• Translate search interface in different languages
• Create regional portals, both for distribution data and for taxonomy
Contribution to CoML
• Services to Census projects, especially in terms of supporting their synthesis activities; similar services for other data providers– Supplying first-level information products from OBIS
db (extractions, summaries, simple analysis) as a matter of routine
• Integrate all relevant data from CoML Field Projects and HMAP– Combine with data from RONs – Add ‘in situ’ environmental data
Visualization
• Re-invent the search interface on the iOBIS web site
• Provide more flexible/sophisticated mapping tools on the iOBIS web site
• Pre-compile standard result sets and make them available through the iOBIS site (global temporal or spatial patterns of diversity, number of species…)
Other outcomes of GB
• GB formalised– All present + JB full members, EV ex-officio– Work with session chairs– ExCom and GB coincide now that GB is small
• Many suggestions for improvement of web site– Better advertise successes
• RON network, hits on site, number of data providers…
– Include use cases to demonstrate societal relevance– Have community part of web site
• Calendar, feedback system, discussion forum, news…
• Milestones and deliverables discussed
Other outcomes of MC
• RON Roles & Responsibilities finalised– Will be basis for MoU with all RONs
• New candidate RONs introduced– Philippines, Arabian Sea
• Development of Gazetteer– In collaboration with EurOBIS and SCAR-MarBIN– ‘WoRMS’ for geography
• Development of toolkit for data providers– SCAR-MarBIN
• Results of taxonomic data cleaning presented• TWG constituted and (afterwards) called
IT brainstorming group
• IT choices for OBIS made 10 years ago• Are these still best options?• New set of ‘tools’:
– PostGreSQL, PostGIS, GeoServer, OpenLayers– Move away from home-grown solutions, adopt
community-developed tools– Web services, flexible access to OBIS data– Interoperability!!
• Pilot by Chris Condit (SDSC)• Basis for new OBIS web site• Further development of OBI community