2017 ESIP Winter Meeting

Marine Biodiversity Observation Networks (MBONs) will produce measurements of organism occurrences, abundance and density from various ongoing local collections, and from new technologies such as genome sequencing and imagery. From these will be produced complex derived measurements and multiple diversity indices for broad taxonomic groups (“microbes-to-megafauna”). Data must be interoperable with existing environmental measurements and also aligned with Darwin Core and GBIF.  Considerable work has gone into lists of biological terms, e.g., the Essential Biological Variables, the IOOS Biological Core Variables and as part of the GOOS Essential Ocean Variables. However, some aspects of these vocabularies are still at the conceptual level - i.e., they are somewhat ambiguous and without quantities assigned. Concrete descriptions of measurements for population data are needed in all communities studying populations and biodiversity, so additional work on these terms will have broad applicability. Alignment between Darwin Core terms (via OBIS) and some MBON datasets from GCOOS has already begun, which lends urgency to this work.

During this session, we will outline the steps necessary to operationalize important population variables so that they can be attached to measurements in MBON datasets. We anticipate tasks such as specifying definitions or constraints for established variables, and  aligning definitions among various vocabularies. A sample of current tools and capabilities will be briefly outlined, and input from participants’ priorities gathered so that a concrete scope of work can be developed to advance this work.

Background Material:

Recommendations for the Use of Knowledge Organisation Systems by GBIF http://www.gbif.org/resource/80656

Pereira, H. M. et al. 2013. Essential Biodiversity Variables. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1229931

GOOS Biology and Ecosystems Panel. http://goosocean.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79&Ite...

A Framework for Ocean Observing. By the Task Team for an Integrated Framework for Sustained Ocean Observing, UNESCO 2012, IOC/INF-1284 rev., doi: 10.5270/OceanObs09-FOO

IOOS Core Variables http://www.iooc.us/activities/biological-integration-observation-task-team/

GCOOS sample datasets aligned with DC terms via the OBIS enrollment process (see attached doc): http://gcoos4.tamu.edu:8080/erddap/search/index.html?page=1&itemsPerPage...

GBIF-TDWG Vocabulary Management Task Group: http://community.gbif.org/pg/groups/21382/,  http://terms.tdwg.org/wiki/,  http://terms.tdwg.org/wiki/Audubon_Core 

 
The Ecosystem Ontology (ECSO) of measurements, http://bioportal.bioontology.org/ontologies/ECSO/

With the introduction of open government, digital data strategies, and the open data/public access directives initiated in the Obama Administration, Federal agencies have been working towards implementing these new requirements. This has involved enormous effort in the development of policies, processes, tools and outreach in order to present quality data and freely available scholarly publications to the public. Along the way there have been successes and challenges for Federal agencies. As a new Administration takes over, we are in a position to take a look back and think about the future. This session will examine progress made towards achieving public access to open data and scholarly publications, how these activities affect non-government organizations, and explore how these achievements position us to sustain and enhance our responsiveness to these important government initiatives. 

Measuring  the value of data products and services offers capabilities for stakeholders in the Earth, space, and social sciences to demonstrate how they are contributing to society. These stakeholders might include sponsors, mission operators, instrument and processing teams, and data distributors, such as digital repositories, scientific data centers, archives, and others. Unlike commercial entities, where return on investment (ROI) or profits may be used to measure value, contributions to the sciences are often conducted by non-profit organizations, including government, research, and educational institutions. Various methodologies can be utilized to demonstrate the value and document the benefits and impact of scientific data. Among other approaches, data distributors and other science stakeholders may measure impact by counts of data citations that appear in publications, users served, data products distributed, or mentions in the news or social media. Presentations in this session describe ways in which science stakeholders, including scientific data distributors, are measuring impact and assessing the value of data.

Speakers
Robert R. Downs, CIESIN, Columbia University. Measuring the Interdisciplinary Value of SEDAC Data.
Yusuke Kuwayama, Resources for the Future. Microeconomic Approaches for Quantifying the Value of Remotely Sensed Information
Robert Reining, The Mitre Corporation. Constructing NOAA's Value Tree: Representing Relationships between NOAA’s Organization, Services, and Observing Systems
Kyle Hundman, JPL, will discuss techniques for measuring online references to spacecraft missions.
Lawrence Friedl, NASA Applied Sciences Program, will share remarks to kick off the discussion.