data marine biodiversity interoperability
Biodiversity is changing but to understand the patterns in those changes we need data. We need it shared in openly accessible ways and aggregated at broad spatial and temporal scales. We need to integrate data from multiple projects, groups, and organizations and to do that we need to work together.
Recently a knowledgeable group of individuals representing several organizations (Caribbean Ocean Biodiversity Information System node, Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System, Hakai, U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), MBON Pole to Pole, Ocean Biodiversity Information System-USA, Ocean Tracking Network, and Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System) hosted an eight hour workshop held virtually over two days to advance interoperability for marine biodiversity data and continue to build a community of practice using standards for biodiversity data. We had a fun, if a bit chaotic, couple of days and wanted to share our perspectives on a somewhat unconventional event.
To meet the needs for data interoperability and open access we focused our workshop on applying the data standard Darwin Core to existing marine biodiversity observation data and sharing it to publicly available, open access data infrastructures- Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) and Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The curriculum for this workshop was modeled using The Carpentries evidence-based best-practices of teaching, reusing materials from existing lessons, and similar workshops. Materials are openly available through GitHub and thus free for re-use or adaptation. The Carpentries framework allows for easy setup of a free website, easily editable content, and maximizes reusability of the curricula.
Figure 1. Data flow diagram depicting the pathway of data from original data to data available in the Ocean Biodiversity Information System and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Our workshop was unconventional because we set aside a significant portion of the workshop time for breakout rooms and individual work. We did this to address blockers identified by many of the participants that they lack time to devote to this type of work and a lack of knowledge about the standards and data workflow. We hoped the combination of time to work and cadre of knowledgeable people to answer questions would meet these needs.
Open data, interoperable data
This workshop advanced the goal of interoperability for marine biodiversity data in several ways. First, the data brought to the workshop spanned a wide variety of data collection methodologies such as deep sea observations, coral reef monitoring, passive acoustic monitoring, zooplankton monitoring, imaging flow cytobot observations and many more. Further, five participants shared their data via GitHub, using it to document their data translation process. Finally, we had three datasets nearing the finish line for publication on OBIS and GBIF.
With the combination of new interoperability of the data and growing knowledge base for marine biodiversity researchers, this workshop provides important contributions to the Marine Life 2030 Programme and the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
Focus on community- this only works if we work together
Photo. Participants of the 2022 Marine Biological Data Mobilization Workshop
Our workshop had 63 participants with international engagement from across both coasts of Canada and the United States throughout the Caribbean, and across Central and South America as well as a few participants from Europe and Africa. Since the workshop was held virtually, we were able to accommodate people from many places and at different stages of their career as well as where they were in the translation process. We added 48 new participants to a Slack workspace dedicated to assisting data managers with applying Darwin Core to their data and hope to continue the conversation by adding people to an associated monthly office hour meeting.
While our workshop was a bit unconventional, participants said it worked well and that the format gave them flexibility in meeting their needs. From respondents to our post-workshop survey, 80% said the workshop helped them move past the blockers they had identified.
Figure 2. Post-workshop survey respondents indicated the workshop helped them move past blockers they had identified in the pre-workshop survey.
All respondents said they would recommend this workshop to a colleague or friend and the familiarity with Darwin Core increased after the workshop. The breadth of expertise and helpfulness of the instructors was highlighted multiple times as strengths of this workshop in the post workshop survey.
Overall we aimed to increase the interoperability of marine biodiversity data and expand the community of practice in using standards for existing data. We feel this workshop met those goals well and we hope others can benefit from reusing our workshop materials to host their own events.
Quotes from participants
