A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level

A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level CoopBioPlat is a Pilot Coordination Action (PCA), funded by ERANET-LAC project of the European Comission. PCAs aim at promoting the opening and the coordination of research and innovation programmes and infrastructures at a biregional scale (EU/LAC). http://eranet-lac.eu/Pilot_Coordination_Actions.php PCA within the framework of the ERANet-LAC project: the Pilot Coordination Actions (PCA). ERANET LAC Network of the European Union to promote and strengthen the bi-regional partnership in Science, Technology and Innovation. ERANet-LAC will lay a special focus on the innovation dimension. It will seek to involve European and Latin American innovation agencies in the joint activities as well as in trust-building actions ERANet-LAC is a Network of the European Union (EU), Latin America and the Caribbean Countries (CELAC) funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development (FP7).

A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level 15.000€ 18 months Deadline: 30/04/2016 Action type: Promoting opening and coordination of innovation programmes This PCA got the maximum financial support that is 15.000€ it started in January 2015 and it should be completed at the end of April There are 3 kinds of PCA and this one is the type: Promoting opening and coordination of innovation programmes There are 6 national GBIF nodes involved in CoopBioPlat 6 National GBIF Nodes involved

Background Global data portal is not enough A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Background Global data portal is not enough More elaborate analysis are needed Atlas of Living Australia is the model All six partners are as well national biodiversity data infrastructures that take into operations the priorities and needs of their respective countries in science, conservation and management. Because the context in which biodiversity information is requested and used, a global data portal does not satisfy the national needs, and more elaborated platforms, able to cross-link and analyse raw biodiversity data with other data such as land use, protected areas, fire hazard severity zones, national red-lists, etc. are needed. Australia is at the forefront of these developments with its Atlas of Living Australia. The partners in this proposal, along with the GBIF International Secretariat, have already engaged with the ALA team aiming to produce a software package based on their platform that could be deployed and adapted to serve biodiversity data under different national scenarios. Previous workshops (Costa Rica and Canberra) where the collaboration start. 2014: GBIF Secretariat helps the community to organize and advance to implement ALA Tools for National Biodiversity data Portals This topic is part of the last meeting of the european gbif nodes that took place in Paris However, the ALA platform as powerful as it is, is also very complex, and was not designed to be redeployed for areas other than Australia and languages other than English; documentation is also very limited. In this scenario, it makes total sense for the programmes in this proposal to join forces to tailor the ALA portal, to their needs which are common in structure but differ in the specifics, at a fraction what it would cost to build and maintain. This is the driver behind this proposal and an essential component of it.

A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level http://www.ala.org.au/

A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level

Background Global data portal is not enough A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Background Global data portal is not enough More elaborate analysis are needed Atlas of Living Australia is the model Previous workshops (Costa Rica and Canberra) Collaboration between GBIF Secretariat + Nodes + ALA team ALA developments are open source Platform very powerful but complex Territory and language barriers Documentation very limited All six partners are as well national biodiversity data infrastructures that take into operations the priorities and needs of their respective countries in science, conservation and management. Because the context in which biodiversity information is requested and used, a global data portal does not satisfy the national needs, and more elaborated platforms, able to cross-link and analyse raw biodiversity data with other data such as land use, protected areas, fire hazard severity zones, national red-lists, etc. are needed. Australia is at the forefront of these developments with its Atlas of Living Australia. The partners in this proposal, along with the GBIF International Secretariat, have already engaged with the ALA team aiming to produce a software package based on their platform that could be deployed and adapted to serve biodiversity data under different national scenarios. Previous workshops (Costa Rica and Canberra) where the collaboration start. 2014: GBIF Secretariat helps the community to organize and advance to implement ALA Tools for National Biodiversity data Portals This topic is part of the last meeting of the european gbif nodes that took place in Paris However, the ALA platform as powerful as it is, is also very complex, and was not designed to be redeployed for areas other than Australia and languages other than English; documentation is also very limited. In this scenario, it makes total sense for the programmes in this proposal to join forces to tailor the ALA portal, to their needs which are common in structure but differ in the specifics, at a fraction what it would cost to build and maintain. This is the driver behind this proposal and an essential component of it.

A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goals: Reach an institutional agreement to cooperate on biodiversity data portals (national, based on ALA); and Demonstrate technical cooperation and progress in developing national data portals. In this context CoopBioPlat was born. It has two goals. past and on-going cooperation, though beneficial and effective, has been much limited to communication and training, relaying too much on personal connections. This PCA proposal aims to move the current level of collaboration to a more tangible and fundamental plane, by planning, coordinating, and sharing developments, in this case software code and documentation for serving biodiversity data, in a variety of cases: for scientist research, for land-use planning, conservation, etc.

Goal nr 1: Agreement and plan development A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 1: Agreement and plan development Meeting in Buenos Aires (June 2015 ) Heads of each institution Review current state of each partner Working plan for advancing the technical aspects First draft of the agreement (MoU) To achive goal nr 1 there was a meeting in Argentina at the beginning of 2015. Meeting objectives were covered to the highest expectations: Current situation and expectations of the project’s partners was reviewed, a fairly polished draft covering all the relevant aspects was consensued, and a working plan for advancing the technical aspects defined. host -- Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation

Goal nr 1: Agreement and plan development. Issues/concerns A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 1: Agreement and plan development. Issues/concerns Spain is leading the final singment of MoU (Scientific Management Support  Unit-CSIC) Burocratic problems (language of MoU, high level of Governments) To be sign before April 30th No answer from PCA coordinator Online review of the agreement, all made changes and agreed on the document but Brazil. Brazil: Objectives not concrete provisions about how will the activities be developed.. I mean, most of the general MoU signed by our Ministry have a clause on how colaboration activities will be planned and conducted within the agreement, what sort of instruments (official documents) will be needed for that, e Scientific Management Support  Unit Vice-presidency for Scientific and Technical Research Spanish National Research Council (CSIC

Goal nr 2: ICT developments A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 2: ICT developments Meeting in Madrid (Oct 2015) Technical team from Nodes (but Costa Rica) + assistant from ALA Review of current state of each partner’s developments Issue solving Sharable code: Github Documentation (Encounter Bay) technical cooperation and progress in developing national data portals Software developers from Argentina, Brazil, France, Portugal and Spain attended the meeting and were assisted by David Martin from Atlas of Living Australia. The purpose of the meeting was to move forward on the development of national data portals based on ALA, with special emphasis on Species and Geospatial modules. Progress was also made in the documentation and internationalization tasks in coordination with the Encounter Bay project. Review of current state of each partner, issues solving Produce a sharable code for the common platform that integrates all developments made by the partnership Communication list

Goal nr 2: ICT developments A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 2: ICT developments Watch: GBIF nodes staff talk about progress in adapting the ALA portal at the meeting in Madrid https://youtu.be/molYVbldkwM

Goal nr 2: current state of national data portals A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 2: current state of national data portals Brazil https://portaldabiodiversidade.icmbio.gov.br/portal/ Argentina http://sndbtest.mincyt.gob.ar/ TEST MODE

Goal nr 2: current state of national data portals A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 2: current state of national data portals Spain http://datos.gbif.es/ France http://portail.gbif.fr/

Goal nr 2: current state of national data portals A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 2: current state of national data portals Costa Rica http://www.crbio.cr/ Portugal Beta version soon

Goal nr 1: current state of national data portals A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 1: current state of national data portals  Platform modules   Project Partners biocache Collectory Species Geospatial Cit Sci Voluntiers Hubs Mobile Sensitive MERIT ARG Plan Wish To look BR Eval - CR Test Dev Not FR Prod PT Prom ES ? Dev in the works; aiming to have it in production Not Implementation discarded; not a priority Eval Under consideration; no decision taken yet Test Assessing; resources committed into it Plan Planned /scheduled /Resources committed To look Evaluation pending Prod In production Wish Wished, but not resourced identified to tackle it Prom Being promoted; gathering interest

Goal nr 1: current state of national data portals A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Goal nr 1: current state of national data portals  Platform modules   Project Partners biocache Collectory Species Geospatial Cit Sci Voluntiers Hubs Mobile Sensitive MERIT ARG Prod Wish To look BR - Eval CR Dev Not Test FR PT Prom ES ? Dev in the works; aiming to have it in production Not Implementation discarded; not a priority Eval Under consideration; no decision taken yet Test Assessing; resources committed into it Plan Planned /scheduled /Resources committed To look Evaluation pending Prod In production Wish Wished, but not resourced identified to tackle it Prom Being promoted; gathering interest

Expected results / conclussions A cooperative framework for building a common platform to serve biodiversity information at national level Expected results / conclussions Framework agreement Cooperation plan 6 National data portals Support of experts Synergy with Encounter Bay project Open source code Support from ALA staff and GBIFS A framework agreement close to be signed and cooperation plan among the six participating programmes to coordinate and joint forces on technical developments At least 5 websites serving biodiversity information at national level in 5 different countries and others to come A product (the portal) and expertise (the teams) ready to support other national biodiversity information networks to implement the resulting platform in cooperation with GBIF International and the Atlas of Living Australia project, in various languages (English, French, Portuguese and Spanish). “Encounter Bay”: translations and documentation of ALA, leaded by Belgium. his project brings together four European nodes that have decided to reuse the Atlas of Living Australia software for the development of their national biodiversity portals to work on ensuring the technical documentation and user-interface are available in French, Portuguese and Spanish. To support the further reuse of the software by others, the project will deliver all user-interface texts completely translated into French, Portuguese and Spanish; key technical documentation (basic installation and operation guides) available in English and translated into the three languages; and translation guidelines for further translations of the software (in English). Progress was also made in the documentation and internationalization tasks in coordination with the Encounter Bay project. This all has been possible because it is based on open source code and thanks to the support of ALA staff and Secretariat

Cristina Villaverde Coordination Unit, GBIF Spain Real Jardín Botánico - CSIC Claudio Moyano 1, 28014 Madrid, Spain villaverde@gbif.es www.gbif.es / datos.gbif.es twitter.com/GbifEs