Marine Biodiversity Data Mobilization Workshop 2023

News > Marine Biodiversity Data Mobilization Workshop 2023

May 11, 2023 - OBIS secretariatmarine biodiversity workshop

A learner-led workshop to combat the biodiversity crisis with data

Biodiversity is changing and is thought to be in crisis. But to understand those changes we need data. We need data that is openly shared, easily accessed, and interoperable for aggregating at broad spatial and temporal scales. We need to integrate data from diverse types of biological observations, generated by the myriad projects, groups, and organizations that make up our scientific community, and to do this we need to work together.

Recently, a group of experts in marine data science standards and data management hosted a virtual eight-hour workshop spread over two days, to help scientists educate themselves on how to leverage data standards for rapidly mobilizing their data to global biodiversity databases. This second annual Marine Biodiversity Data Mobilization Workshop built upon the successes of last year, with some attendees returning with more data. Like the previous year, we had a fun couple of days and jumpstarted the mobilization of dozens of datasets. Equally important, we strengthened our community of practice by facilitating the interactions of scientists from 4 continents and 17 countries.

The group of experts who organized and ran the workshop represent several organizations (Caribbean Ocean Biodiversity Information System node, Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System, Hakai Institute, U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), Ocean Biodiversity Information System, Ocean Biodiversity Information System-USA, and Ocean Tracking Network) and collectively represent over 55 years of experience implementing the relevant standards and practices.

The workshop is somewhat unconventional because the majority of workshop time was used for breakout room discussions and individual work. Consistent with our experience as experts, participants identified lack of time and lack of knowledge as blockers to publishing standardized biodiversity data to open access databases. Our hypothesis is that provisioning time and expertise in a focused space will help the majority of attendees overcome these blockers for a specific dataset and help them build a mental model for overcoming these blockers for future datasets they may generate or manage.

The goals of the workshop were for each attendee to (1) apply the Darwin Core (DwC) data standard to an existing marine biodiversity observation dataset, which they provided, and (2) share it to publicly available, open access data infrastructures – the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (Figure 1). However, because all attendees did not begin at the same starting point, it was not expected that they all would publish to OBIS and GBIF by the end of the two-day workshop. Attendees were encouraged to stay in touch with the organizers, and the group as a whole, via Slack, GitHub, and monthly group meetings to support the completion of this workflow within the next year or less. The first published dataset was published through OBIS-USA two weeks after the workshop finished.

The workshop was structured to provide resources and expertise to help attendees make efficient decisions toward achieving the goals. Thus, after being shown short videos (available via the OBIS YouTube channel) describing some facet of the workflow (e.g Darwin Core, QAQC, metadata), discussions were learner-led, and ample time and virtual space were provided for the attendees to dedicate themselves to working on their datasets. 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. The goal of each workshop attendee was to mobilize a dataset according to the workflow pictured here.

Adding value with open data, interoperable data

This workshop catalyzed the mobilization of at least 56 datasets from diverse areas of study and methodology like eDNA, acoustic monitoring, animal tracking, automated photo identification, deep oceans, kelp forests, and indigenous knowledge marine areas. Attendees applied the Darwin Core standard to their data, drastically increasing the interoperability of these diverse datasets. Prior to the workshop, many participants chose to share their data via GitHub, using the GitHub framework to document their data translation process and increase the openness of their data. With the help of automated reminders and the OBIS-USA data managers, attendees will be reminded and encouraged to finish publishing their data to OBIS and GBIF, which will complete the journey to make this data interoperable and openly shared along with the billions of other observations published in 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

Figure 2. Screenshot of workshop attendees.

Our workshop had 115 applicants associated with institutions from 34 countries and four continents. Attendees represented both coasts of North and South America, the Caribbean, Central America, East Africa, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean and India. Although only about 50% of applicants attended the workshop, this highlights the value of the workshop being held virtually as these attendees found it worthwhile to attend even though the workshop was conducted during traditional working hours for the Western Hemisphere.

Figure 3. Distribution of countries represented by the institutions with which the applicants and attendees were associated.

Respondents to the post-survey said it worked well and that the format gave them flexibility in meeting their needs. 100% of respondents (n = 14) said the workshop helped them move past the blockers they had identified (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Post-workshop survey results. The linear scale ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

All respondents said they would recommend this workshop to a colleague or friend. 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.

  1. WF (2022) Living Planet Report 2022 – Building a naturepositive society. Almond, R.E.A., Grooten, M., Juffe Bignoli, D. & Petersen, T. (Eds). WWF, Gland, Switzerland.

  2. Biddle, Mathew, Benson, Abby, van der Stap, Tim, Pye, Jonathan, Murray, Tylar, Lawrence, Elizabeth, & Formel, Stephen. (2023). Marine data mobilization workshop (Version 2023). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7896606