Transcript Databaser vid Naturhistoriska riksmuseet

Building Sustainable
Biodiversity Information
Systems
Fredrik Ronquist
Dept. Bioinformatics and Genetics
Swedish Museum of Natural History
Who am I?
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Lead the development of MorphBank, an open web
repository for biodiversity images, 1998–2007
Organizing the DINA-Specify effort, an international
initiative to develop an open-source web-based system for
collection management
Our group is a partner or node in GBIF, LifeWatch, EUBON / GEO BON, BalticDiversity
We contribute or have contributed to BioCASE, OpenUp,
PESI, Synthesys, etc
Since 2011 a member of the Swedish Research Council
panel on eScience infrastructure
A Global Network of Regional Centers?
European Center for
Biodiversity
Information
North American
Center for
Biodiversity
Information
Asian Center for
Biodiversity
Information
South American
Center for
Biodiversity
Information
African Center for
Biodiversity
Information
Australian Center for
Biodiversity
Information
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Involves 29 mostly European partners
Aims to build a substantial part of the Group on Earth Observation’s
Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON)
Will provide ”near-real-time data — both from on-ground observations and
remote sensing — to stake holders and end users ranging from local to
global levels”
”... intends to develop a full-scale model for a durable mechanism for
higher level integration of biodiversity information providers and users
through a network of networks approach scalable from local to global
biodiversity observation systems”
Advance technological/informatics infrastructures for GEO BON
Improve the range and quality of methods and tools for assessment,
analysis, and visualization of drivers of change and biodiversity indicators
Five-year project 2012–2017. Long-term sustainability: LifeWatch (?)
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A European infrastructure in development
Part of the ESFRI Roadmap 2006 (ESFRI = European Strategy Forum on
Research Infrastructures)
Preparatory phase 2008–2011 with participation of 19 European countries
Currently five participating countries (Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands,
Romania, Spain)
Major national LifeWatch initiatives include Swedish LifeWatch, ~ 5 M €
budget for 2010-2014, coordinated by the Swedish Species Information
Centre in Uppsala
Focus in Swedish LifeWatch is on development of analytical tools for Swedish
biodiversity and climate data
Long-term sustainability?
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For analytical and visualization tools, not for digitization or for systems for digital
asset management and data delivery?
Will the project gin traction in Europe?
LifeWatch – GBIF competing for funds?
The Collaborative Approach
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Collaboration means significant social and technical challenges
Success requires modular design of large systems to allow semiindependent development in contributing development teams
Some parallel development is unavoidable and even desirable
Coordinating efforts and maintaining a consistent overall system is
challenging
Establishment of standard interfaces to modules: a role for TDWG
Natural History Collection Institutions provide a good institutional
platform for sustainable solutions:
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Long-term time perspective
Digital assets - just another collection
Strong community increasingly used to international collaborations
eScience competence improving rapidly
Long-term perspective requires patience
DINA
(Digital Information System for Natural History Data)
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Web-based system for assembling, managing and sharing data
associated with natural history collections
Scope includes botany, zoology, paleontology, geology,
observation records, molecular data and living collections
Based on cross-institutional open-source development starting
with Specify and Morphbank as initial building blocks
Aim is national or large-institution installations servicing
multiple institutions and a range of users, from professional
collection managers and curators to collections-oriented
citizen scientists
Current consortium partners include software development
teams as well as institutions or national initiatives interested
in hosting software installations
Project info and news at http://dina-project.net
DINA-Specify Consortium
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Current partners
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Biodiversity Institute (Specify team), University of
Kansas, USA
Botany and Biodiversity Informatics, Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, Canada
Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany
Natural History Museum, University of Tartu, Estonia
Danish Museum of Natural History, Copenhagen,
Denmark
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm,
Sweden
Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
Possibly Harvard University Herbaria, Harvard
University, USA
Memorandum of Cooperation ready for signing
before the end of the year (download from
http://dina-project.net)
Consortium Structure
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Core members:
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Associate members:
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Commit a full-time equivalent of staff resources to the development of consortium
goals, including at least a half-time resource for software development
Are represented in the SETF and are expected to contribute actively to its work
Commit to work under SETF guidelines
Commit to support consortium goals
Do not commit any staff resources and are not represented in the SETF
Provide technical expertise and feedback on system design
Funding of consortium contributions may involve both temporary and
permanent funding sources
Members may change their status (associate or core) at any time with
previous notice and due respect to previous commitments to the consortium
Members may leave the consortium at any time
Memorandum of Cooperation has a five-year time frame with possibility of
extension
DINA: EU-BON Objectives
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Integrate DINA-Specify with taxonomic backbone for Europe and other
tools (e.g. molecular biodiversity data and digitization tools) developed
within EU-BON
Improve data mobilization through real-time sharing of data across
relevant networks (GBIF, BioCASE etc)
Development of citizen science (amateur naturalists) interface to the
system
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Development of interfaces in relevant EU-BON languages
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Support for EU-BON institutions that would like to install the system
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Support for institutional and citizen-science users of the system
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Participate in targeted digitization and mobilization efforts based on gap
analysis
Consortium Organization
International
Steering
Committee
(all members)
Task Force I
System
Engineering Task
Force
(core members)
Task Force II
Development Team 1
Development Team II
Development Team
III
DINA organization
Sweden
Agriculture Canada,
Ottawa, Canada
NRM
NRM Steering
Group
Digital Collection
Managers
Specify team
Kansas, USA
Natural History
Museum, Tartu
DINA-SE
development team
Museum für
Naturkunde, Berlin
DINA-DK
DINA-SE steering
group
DINA International
Council
DINA-SE development team
Karin Karlsson (50 %)
Ida Li
Kevin Holston
Markus Englund (80 %)
Markus Skyttner
Ingimar Erlingsson
Modularization of DINA-Specify
Acknowledgements
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DINA-Specify consortium partners
Swedish Museum of Natural
History
EU BON
BalticDiversity (EU Regional
Development Fund)
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Swedish GBIF node
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Swedish LifeWatch
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Swedish Research Council