The document discusses the objectives of the GBIF MRTG which include surveying multimedia resource providers and making recommendations on social, technical, and long-term issues. It also mentions drafting a multimedia metadata schema for biodiversity and a global strategy for mobilizing observation, ecology, and multimedia data. Finally, it directs the reader to join the TDWG IMG mailing list to provide comments on a draft multimedia metadata schema.
The document summarizes recommendations from the GBIF GSAP-NHC Task Group on improving the digitization and publication of natural history collection data. It recommends that GBIF facilitate discovery of non-digital collection resources, increase efficiency and quality of data capture, and improve global infrastructure for publishing digitized collection data. Specifically, it calls for GBIF to publicize non-digital metadata, assess the scale of undigitized specimens, support technological innovations for digitization, and strengthen hosting and identification of published data.
This document discusses resolving taxonomic discrepancies through the use of electronic catalogues of known organisms. It highlights discrepancies found between IndFauna, an electronic catalogue of known Indian fauna, and global databases like ITIS. Discrepancies include differences in taxonomic hierarchies, spelling differences, and homonymies. Electronic catalogues can help identify such issues by allowing cross-checking of taxonomic information across sources. Resolving discrepancies requires discussion with taxonomy experts and application of nomenclature rules. The development of IndFauna and comparison to other databases demonstrated its ability to resolve taxonomic discrepancies.
The document summarizes the development of an electronic catalogue (IndFauna) of known Indian fauna. It discusses the importance of developing electronic catalogues to consolidate information on biodiversity. IndFauna collates baseline information on over 93% of India's approximately 90,000 known faunal species. The catalogue demonstrates collaboration between domain experts and IT managers to overcome taxonomic challenges and enable sustainable management and conservation of biotic resources.
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international initiative that aims to provide open access to biodiversity data. It currently has 50 participating countries and 40 international organizations contributing data. GBIF develops standards and tools to help aggregate and publish biodiversity data from various sources. This includes species occurrences, names, taxonomic information, and more. GBIF's data portal allows users to search, browse, and access over 181 million georeferenced records. GBIF is working to integrate biodiversity data on a global scale and support areas like conservation and monitoring of biodiversity trends.
The document discusses technologies and infrastructure for publishing biodiversity data from environmental impact assessments (EIA). It covers the types and formats of EIA biodiversity data, tools for data capture and digitization, platforms for data discovery and publishing, ensuring data quality, and hosting data centers to facilitate long-term archiving and publishing of EIA biodiversity data.
The document discusses the objectives of the GBIF MRTG which include surveying multimedia resource providers and making recommendations on social, technical, and long-term issues. It also mentions drafting a multimedia metadata schema for biodiversity and a global strategy for mobilizing observation, ecology, and multimedia data. Finally, it directs the reader to join the TDWG IMG mailing list to provide comments on a draft multimedia metadata schema.
The document summarizes recommendations from the GBIF GSAP-NHC Task Group on improving the digitization and publication of natural history collection data. It recommends that GBIF facilitate discovery of non-digital collection resources, increase efficiency and quality of data capture, and improve global infrastructure for publishing digitized collection data. Specifically, it calls for GBIF to publicize non-digital metadata, assess the scale of undigitized specimens, support technological innovations for digitization, and strengthen hosting and identification of published data.
This document discusses resolving taxonomic discrepancies through the use of electronic catalogues of known organisms. It highlights discrepancies found between IndFauna, an electronic catalogue of known Indian fauna, and global databases like ITIS. Discrepancies include differences in taxonomic hierarchies, spelling differences, and homonymies. Electronic catalogues can help identify such issues by allowing cross-checking of taxonomic information across sources. Resolving discrepancies requires discussion with taxonomy experts and application of nomenclature rules. The development of IndFauna and comparison to other databases demonstrated its ability to resolve taxonomic discrepancies.
The document summarizes the development of an electronic catalogue (IndFauna) of known Indian fauna. It discusses the importance of developing electronic catalogues to consolidate information on biodiversity. IndFauna collates baseline information on over 93% of India's approximately 90,000 known faunal species. The catalogue demonstrates collaboration between domain experts and IT managers to overcome taxonomic challenges and enable sustainable management and conservation of biotic resources.
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international initiative that aims to provide open access to biodiversity data. It currently has 50 participating countries and 40 international organizations contributing data. GBIF develops standards and tools to help aggregate and publish biodiversity data from various sources. This includes species occurrences, names, taxonomic information, and more. GBIF's data portal allows users to search, browse, and access over 181 million georeferenced records. GBIF is working to integrate biodiversity data on a global scale and support areas like conservation and monitoring of biodiversity trends.
The document discusses technologies and infrastructure for publishing biodiversity data from environmental impact assessments (EIA). It covers the types and formats of EIA biodiversity data, tools for data capture and digitization, platforms for data discovery and publishing, ensuring data quality, and hosting data centers to facilitate long-term archiving and publishing of EIA biodiversity data.
The document discusses two task groups convened by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to provide recommendations around metadata and identifiers. The Metadata Implementation Framework Task Group recommended that GBIF develop a distributed metadata catalog system to describe biodiversity data using controlled vocabularies. The LSID-GUID Task Group recommended that GBIF encourage, support and advise on the use of identifiers like LSIDs and URIs to interconnect data and provide identifier resolution services.
This document provides an overview of bioinformatics education in India. It discusses how bioinformatics education has evolved from short workshops to formal degree programs over time. A key development was the establishment of the Biotechnology Information System network in the 1980s by the Department of Biotechnology, which helped develop bioinformatics infrastructure and training programs in India. The document then describes the current landscape of bioinformatics education in India, including a case study of the master's program in bioinformatics at the University of Pune. It concludes by noting that many universities and institutions now offer bioinformatics education at various levels to train students for careers in this growing field.
This document discusses data citation mechanisms and services for primary biodiversity data. It outlines the need for data citation to provide recognition for data producers and publishers. An ideal data citation framework would address social, technical, and policy issues to incentivize all stakeholders. Core technical components would include persistent identifiers, a data citation mechanism, and a data usage index. The document reviews the history calling for data citation standards and proposes requirements for an effective data citation model, including attributing roles across data production and publication. It also examines challenges in developing data citation practices.
The document discusses the issue of uneven distribution of biodiversity data around the world, with much of the data held by small publishers and citizen scientists. It notes that these "small data publishers" face challenges in discovering, accessing, managing and publishing their data according to standards. The document calls for developing standards and tools that make it easier for small data publishers to capture, organize and share their biodiversity data in order to help mobilize this important but hard to access data.
This document discusses the development of a web-based multimedia database called the Sacred Groves Information System (SGIS) to collect and disseminate information on sacred groves in India. Sacred groves are patches of forest or land dedicated to local deities that harbor significant biodiversity. The SGIS database model was created to integrate scattered information on over 3,000 sacred groves from published literature and personal communications. It uses an Oracle backend accessed through Java Server Pages. Current functions allow keyword searches and retrieval of state-specific grove details. Future plans include collecting more detailed data, linking to other databases, and integrating geographic information systems. The authors aim to strengthen conservation of these culturally and biologically important ecosystems through a
Conceptualising Framework for Local Biodiversity Heritage Sites (LBHS): A Bio...Vishwas Chavan
This document proposes a conceptual framework for establishing Local Biodiversity Heritage Sites (LBHS) in Maharashtra, India based on a social-ecological model. It discusses how the Biological Diversity Act of 2002 allows local communities to designate biodiversity-rich areas as heritage sites. The framework identifies potential LBHS in two habitats: sacred groves, which are forest patches traditionally protected for their cultural and ecological values; and rocky plateaus, which support unique biodiversity through indigenous management practices. The document argues LBHS can preserve genetic resources, species, ecosystems, knowledge, culture and traditions as a legacy for future generations.
State Biodiversity Boards: Towards Better GovernanceVishwas Chavan
India’s Biological Diversity Act, 2002, and the three-tier
implementation mechanism of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), the State Biodiversity Board (SBB), the Union Territory Biodiversity Council (UTBC) and the Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) is close to two decades old. However, our collective and compounding national progress is much less than satisfactory. One of the major reasons is lack of empowerment
of the SBBs, the UTBCs and resultantly passive functioning of the BMCs. Bottom-upward empowerment of BMCs to SBBs and UTBCs is crucial in order to achieve the National Biodiversity Targets (NBT) and other national biodiversity conservation and sustainable development ambitions. In this article, author proposes a five pillared work program that can help empower
the SBBs and UTBCs that can result in vibrant and optimally governing BMCs. Some or all of the activities mentioned in this article may have been initiated or implemented by few SBBs and UTBCs. However, author calls for coordinated and performance evaluation mechanism being developed and steered by SBBs and UTBC to achieve the national goal of development inclusive biodiversity conservation.
Exploring the future of scholarly publishing of biodiversity dataVishwas Chavan
Little more than decade back biodiversity data publishing was opportunistic and secondary spin-off activity of the biodiversity research and conservation management chain. Today, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility facilitate free and open access to over 420 million primary biodiversity data records contributed by publishers across the globe. This is an outcome of a growing realization that free and open access to biodiversity data is crucial to take informed decisions and actions for sustainable use of biotic resources and conservation of biodiversity areas. In recent past use of biodiversity data in research, conservation and management activities is on rise. However, users often complain about the low degree of ‘fitness-for-use’ of the accessible data. Most of the times potential use of data is hampered because of lack of adequate metadata, that can demonstrate the fintness-for-use of a given dataset.
To overcome this an appropriate incentivisation mechanism is essential, that can provide due credit and acknowledgement to a research groups for their efforts in authoring good metadata. In recent past a concept of ‘scholarly data publishing’ is being talked about where in both data and metadata undergo peer-review similar to other scientific publications. Pensoft publishing has launched a fresh data only journal called ‘Biodiversity Data Journal, and accepts data papers in six of its other journal titles. European aquatic biodiversity community through EU funded project ‘BioFresh’ has engaged with editors of 29 aquatic biodiversity journals to being accepting data papers. GBIF node in Columbia and South Africa are planning to kick start a journal that will publish data papers. Recently, Nature Publishing Group has announced a peer-reviewed data publishing only journal called ‘Scientific Data’. These developments announce the arrival of the new data publishing era ‘Scholarly Data Publishing’. Biodiversity science and biodiversity informatics stands to gain a lot by being on the forefront of this tide.
The document discusses GBIF's 2010-2011 work programme highlights related to improving content for science and society. It outlines GBIF's approach to focus on community needs, expand content coverage to include multimedia and observations, and increase relevance through facilitating the flow of data and information to scientific publications and decisions. It also analyzes current coverage and content biases and trends to help guide GBIF's science focus in 2011.
The document summarizes the recommendations of the GBIF Governing Board's Global Strategy and Action Plan for Mobilization of Natural History Collections Data task group. The task group recommends that GBIF facilitate discovery of non-digital collection resources, increase efficiency of data capture and quality of digitized specimens, and improve infrastructure for publishing digitized collection data globally.
The document summarizes the state of data publishing through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) network. It finds that while data records are increasing, the rate of increase is declining. Developing regions contribute the most data, with the Avian Knowledge Network as the single largest data publisher. Over 2.4 billion records have been identified by GBIF participants but only around 800 million are accessible digitally and participants have committed to publishing less than 25% of available records by 2010. There remains a need for more strategic and planned approaches to data discovery and publishing with an emphasis on both local and global efforts.
This article discusses Balanophora, a rare and endangered plant found in North East India. It belongs to the family Balanophoraceae. The 15 species in the genus are native to the Old World Tropics. Most species are parasites on tree roots and are found in dense forests in the Himalayan region. They have underground inflorescences that rupture and emerge above ground. The plants are dioecious. Balanophora is listed as an endangered species under Indian law and prohibited from export due to its rarity. The article provides a brief description of the plant's rhizome, scapes, and reproductive structure.
The document summarizes recommendations from the GBIF GSAP-NHC Task Group on improving the publishing of natural history collections data. It recommends that GBIF facilitate access to information about non-digital collections, work to increase the efficiency of digitizing specimen data and enhance data quality, and improve the global infrastructure for publishing digitized collections data.
The document discusses a meeting agenda between GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) and Elsevier to discuss opportunities for collaboration around data publishing and sharing biodiversity data. Some key points discussed in the agenda include GBIF's role in facilitating open access to biodiversity data, its data publishing framework to encourage data mobilization and sharing, and potential areas of collaboration around simultaneous publishing of data and scholarly articles.
The document discusses GBIF's (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) goals of facilitating open access to biodiversity data worldwide to support scientific research. GBIF shares over 200 million biodiversity records through data publishers and resources. The document proposes a Data Publishing Framework to improve data mobilization and cultural acceptance of open data sharing. It describes challenges to the framework and its potential impacts, such as increased data usage and quality through incentives like data papers and a Data Usage Index.
The document discusses the need for a Global Biodiversity Resources Discovery System (GBRDS) to address challenges in discovering biodiversity data. It proposes that GBRDS would act as a registry and discovery service to facilitate finding biodiversity information resources. GBRDS would provide an integrated 'yellow pages' reference for all biodiversity data by reconciling distributed resources and allowing meaningful discovery of data and services in a distributed manner. The document outlines how GBRDS could empower discovery of biodiversity data resources.
The document discusses two task groups convened by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to provide recommendations around metadata and identifiers. The Metadata Implementation Framework Task Group recommended that GBIF develop a distributed metadata catalog system to describe biodiversity data using controlled vocabularies. The LSID-GUID Task Group recommended that GBIF encourage, support and advise on the use of identifiers like LSIDs and URIs to interconnect data and provide identifier resolution services.
This document provides an overview of bioinformatics education in India. It discusses how bioinformatics education has evolved from short workshops to formal degree programs over time. A key development was the establishment of the Biotechnology Information System network in the 1980s by the Department of Biotechnology, which helped develop bioinformatics infrastructure and training programs in India. The document then describes the current landscape of bioinformatics education in India, including a case study of the master's program in bioinformatics at the University of Pune. It concludes by noting that many universities and institutions now offer bioinformatics education at various levels to train students for careers in this growing field.
This document discusses data citation mechanisms and services for primary biodiversity data. It outlines the need for data citation to provide recognition for data producers and publishers. An ideal data citation framework would address social, technical, and policy issues to incentivize all stakeholders. Core technical components would include persistent identifiers, a data citation mechanism, and a data usage index. The document reviews the history calling for data citation standards and proposes requirements for an effective data citation model, including attributing roles across data production and publication. It also examines challenges in developing data citation practices.
The document discusses the issue of uneven distribution of biodiversity data around the world, with much of the data held by small publishers and citizen scientists. It notes that these "small data publishers" face challenges in discovering, accessing, managing and publishing their data according to standards. The document calls for developing standards and tools that make it easier for small data publishers to capture, organize and share their biodiversity data in order to help mobilize this important but hard to access data.
This document discusses the development of a web-based multimedia database called the Sacred Groves Information System (SGIS) to collect and disseminate information on sacred groves in India. Sacred groves are patches of forest or land dedicated to local deities that harbor significant biodiversity. The SGIS database model was created to integrate scattered information on over 3,000 sacred groves from published literature and personal communications. It uses an Oracle backend accessed through Java Server Pages. Current functions allow keyword searches and retrieval of state-specific grove details. Future plans include collecting more detailed data, linking to other databases, and integrating geographic information systems. The authors aim to strengthen conservation of these culturally and biologically important ecosystems through a
Conceptualising Framework for Local Biodiversity Heritage Sites (LBHS): A Bio...Vishwas Chavan
This document proposes a conceptual framework for establishing Local Biodiversity Heritage Sites (LBHS) in Maharashtra, India based on a social-ecological model. It discusses how the Biological Diversity Act of 2002 allows local communities to designate biodiversity-rich areas as heritage sites. The framework identifies potential LBHS in two habitats: sacred groves, which are forest patches traditionally protected for their cultural and ecological values; and rocky plateaus, which support unique biodiversity through indigenous management practices. The document argues LBHS can preserve genetic resources, species, ecosystems, knowledge, culture and traditions as a legacy for future generations.
State Biodiversity Boards: Towards Better GovernanceVishwas Chavan
India’s Biological Diversity Act, 2002, and the three-tier
implementation mechanism of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), the State Biodiversity Board (SBB), the Union Territory Biodiversity Council (UTBC) and the Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) is close to two decades old. However, our collective and compounding national progress is much less than satisfactory. One of the major reasons is lack of empowerment
of the SBBs, the UTBCs and resultantly passive functioning of the BMCs. Bottom-upward empowerment of BMCs to SBBs and UTBCs is crucial in order to achieve the National Biodiversity Targets (NBT) and other national biodiversity conservation and sustainable development ambitions. In this article, author proposes a five pillared work program that can help empower
the SBBs and UTBCs that can result in vibrant and optimally governing BMCs. Some or all of the activities mentioned in this article may have been initiated or implemented by few SBBs and UTBCs. However, author calls for coordinated and performance evaluation mechanism being developed and steered by SBBs and UTBC to achieve the national goal of development inclusive biodiversity conservation.
Exploring the future of scholarly publishing of biodiversity dataVishwas Chavan
Little more than decade back biodiversity data publishing was opportunistic and secondary spin-off activity of the biodiversity research and conservation management chain. Today, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility facilitate free and open access to over 420 million primary biodiversity data records contributed by publishers across the globe. This is an outcome of a growing realization that free and open access to biodiversity data is crucial to take informed decisions and actions for sustainable use of biotic resources and conservation of biodiversity areas. In recent past use of biodiversity data in research, conservation and management activities is on rise. However, users often complain about the low degree of ‘fitness-for-use’ of the accessible data. Most of the times potential use of data is hampered because of lack of adequate metadata, that can demonstrate the fintness-for-use of a given dataset.
To overcome this an appropriate incentivisation mechanism is essential, that can provide due credit and acknowledgement to a research groups for their efforts in authoring good metadata. In recent past a concept of ‘scholarly data publishing’ is being talked about where in both data and metadata undergo peer-review similar to other scientific publications. Pensoft publishing has launched a fresh data only journal called ‘Biodiversity Data Journal, and accepts data papers in six of its other journal titles. European aquatic biodiversity community through EU funded project ‘BioFresh’ has engaged with editors of 29 aquatic biodiversity journals to being accepting data papers. GBIF node in Columbia and South Africa are planning to kick start a journal that will publish data papers. Recently, Nature Publishing Group has announced a peer-reviewed data publishing only journal called ‘Scientific Data’. These developments announce the arrival of the new data publishing era ‘Scholarly Data Publishing’. Biodiversity science and biodiversity informatics stands to gain a lot by being on the forefront of this tide.
The document discusses GBIF's 2010-2011 work programme highlights related to improving content for science and society. It outlines GBIF's approach to focus on community needs, expand content coverage to include multimedia and observations, and increase relevance through facilitating the flow of data and information to scientific publications and decisions. It also analyzes current coverage and content biases and trends to help guide GBIF's science focus in 2011.
The document summarizes the recommendations of the GBIF Governing Board's Global Strategy and Action Plan for Mobilization of Natural History Collections Data task group. The task group recommends that GBIF facilitate discovery of non-digital collection resources, increase efficiency of data capture and quality of digitized specimens, and improve infrastructure for publishing digitized collection data globally.
The document summarizes the state of data publishing through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) network. It finds that while data records are increasing, the rate of increase is declining. Developing regions contribute the most data, with the Avian Knowledge Network as the single largest data publisher. Over 2.4 billion records have been identified by GBIF participants but only around 800 million are accessible digitally and participants have committed to publishing less than 25% of available records by 2010. There remains a need for more strategic and planned approaches to data discovery and publishing with an emphasis on both local and global efforts.
This article discusses Balanophora, a rare and endangered plant found in North East India. It belongs to the family Balanophoraceae. The 15 species in the genus are native to the Old World Tropics. Most species are parasites on tree roots and are found in dense forests in the Himalayan region. They have underground inflorescences that rupture and emerge above ground. The plants are dioecious. Balanophora is listed as an endangered species under Indian law and prohibited from export due to its rarity. The article provides a brief description of the plant's rhizome, scapes, and reproductive structure.
The document summarizes recommendations from the GBIF GSAP-NHC Task Group on improving the publishing of natural history collections data. It recommends that GBIF facilitate access to information about non-digital collections, work to increase the efficiency of digitizing specimen data and enhance data quality, and improve the global infrastructure for publishing digitized collections data.
The document discusses a meeting agenda between GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) and Elsevier to discuss opportunities for collaboration around data publishing and sharing biodiversity data. Some key points discussed in the agenda include GBIF's role in facilitating open access to biodiversity data, its data publishing framework to encourage data mobilization and sharing, and potential areas of collaboration around simultaneous publishing of data and scholarly articles.
The document discusses GBIF's (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) goals of facilitating open access to biodiversity data worldwide to support scientific research. GBIF shares over 200 million biodiversity records through data publishers and resources. The document proposes a Data Publishing Framework to improve data mobilization and cultural acceptance of open data sharing. It describes challenges to the framework and its potential impacts, such as increased data usage and quality through incentives like data papers and a Data Usage Index.
The document discusses the need for a Global Biodiversity Resources Discovery System (GBRDS) to address challenges in discovering biodiversity data. It proposes that GBRDS would act as a registry and discovery service to facilitate finding biodiversity information resources. GBRDS would provide an integrated 'yellow pages' reference for all biodiversity data by reconciling distributed resources and allowing meaningful discovery of data and services in a distributed manner. The document outlines how GBRDS could empower discovery of biodiversity data resources.
The document discusses the Global Biodiversity Resources Discovery System (GBRDS) registry which aims to create a single indexed registry of biodiversity data sources. It outlines activities to develop the registry including building a flexible database, user interface, and API. The registry will integrate distributed biodiversity data and enable discovery of institutions, collections, services, and more.
The document discusses technical issues and opportunities for improving the Global Biodiversity Information Facility's (GBIF) registry and portals for discovering biodiversity resources. It analyzes GBIF's past use of UDDI registry and data portal, and outlines challenges in developing a new graph-based registry model to better represent the network of institutions, collections, and relationships. The new registry aims to improve discoverability through associating automated and human-generated metadata, uniquely identifying resources, and defining services and vocabularies.
The document proposes developing the Global Biodiversity Resources Discovery System (GBRDS) to address the challenge of discovering distributed biodiversity data and information resources. The GBRDS would consist of a registry to inventory publishers, institutions, datasets and services, and discovery services to search these resources. It would provide a "map" of all biodiversity information to enable discovery. The GBRDS is envisioned as the core of next generation biodiversity informatics infrastructure and aims to become a unified global entry point for discovering biodiversity resources by December 2010.
Global biodiversity data is critical for conservation, policymaking, and scientific research. However, most data is held by small, isolated publishers and is difficult to access. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) aims to mobilize this "small data" by creating common data standards and tools to publish data through its Integrated Publishing Toolkit. This allows data to be discovered through GBIF's portal and used for applications like predicting climate change impacts and invasive species spread. GBIF calls on all data holders to publish their data openly through its framework to build a comprehensive global resource for biodiversity data.
Publication and dissemination of datasets in taxonomy: ZooKeys working example
Lyubomir Penev, Terry Erwin, Jeremy Miller, Vishwas Chavan, Tom Moritz, Charles Griswold. ZooKeys 11: 1-8 (2009)
doi: 10.3897/zookeys.11.210