MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 DASSH – The Archive for Marine Species and Habitats Dan Lear DASSH Project Co-ordinator Marine Biological Association of the UK

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 MEDIN Partners Meeting What is DASSH How DASSH works What services does DASSH provide Examples of use

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 What is DASSH? DASSH is the national archive for marine species and habitat data. DASSH evolved from the recommendations of the Cowling Report on marine data DASSH builds on the existing extensive data and dissemination skills of the Marine Life Information Network (MarLIN) and library and archiving experience of the National Marine Biological Library (NMBL) and the MBA's historical role in marine science. DASSH is the marine node of the UK National Biodiversity Network (NBN) DASSH is an accredited MEDIN DAC

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 Why do we need DASSH? UK biodiversity datasets were often poorly maintained, held by individuals or organizations without the resources (or will) to mobilize them, difficult to collate or inaccessible, and ownership issues were uncertain. As a result potentially important data (e.g. for detecting long- term change) were lost or inaccessible.

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 What does DASSH do? DASSH is: providing a DAC to safeguard marine biological data, making that data available as a national information resource, producing and promoting standards for biological data exchange, and working with holders and users of marine biological data to ensure best practice and that the full value is being realized from their data.

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 How it works (Data in) Consultancies Public NGO’s Statutory agencies Academia DASSH MEDIN Metadata Data NBN GBIF & OBIS International Initiatives

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 Data acquisition - priorities Priority will be given to the acquisition of: long-term (time-series) data; natural resource surveys (not currently managed or archived); Environmental Assessment (EA) survey data, especially within the commercial sector; Any ‘at risk’ data/images within the categories outlined above, and Any ‘recent’ (last 3 years) datasets within the categories outlined above.

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 Data acquisition – so far Over 800,000 species records from in excess of 630 surveys Growing daily Needs to be a requirement of Government and statutory agency contracts that data is archived in a MEDIN DAC

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 DASSH Web site (

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 How it works (Data out) DASSH provides metadata to MEDIN and data and metadata to the NBN (and on to OBIS and GBIF) DASSH provides metadata to MEDIN via the portal and hosts metadata for other DACs DASSH has developed a web application to query available data and allow direct download or visualization of the data

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 DASSH Services Data management Handle FOI or EIR data requests Custom data queries Archiving Data analysis Metadata and data standards Coordination of data collection Assistance with MEDIN accreditation process

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 Using DASSH Data

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 Using DASSH Data Spread of Crepidula fornicata (Slipper limpet) from Crepidula fornicata at Oreston Spit. Image: Keith Hiscock

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 Developing Standards Developed standard terms and conditions for the supply and use of data Working with MEDIN and other key partners DASSH has developed the MEDIN Discovery Metadata standard, the associated XML schema and an accompanying guidance document. DASSH is also working with CCW to develop standard methodologies for the collection and storage of biological data Developed a Metadata Creation Tool to generate MEDIN Discovery Standard compliant metadata.

MEDIN Partners Meeting June 2009 Thank you Dan Lear For more information about DASSH, to provide data to the archive, or to discuss how DASSH can help your organization please contact: