1. The Natural Science Collections Facility

2. Natural Science Collections

3. Collections in South Africa
Over 80 different institutions hold natural science collections (eg. ARC, SANBI, SAIAB, 11 museums (national, provincial and one municipal), most universities, conservation agencies
Total of more than 140 different collections with >30 million specimens / samples

4. The South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap
Seven RIs were selected by DST for implementation in 2017:
The SA Network of Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites
National Centre for Digital Language Resources (NCDLR)
Distributed Platform for “Omics” Research (Diplomics)
An expanded National Terrestrial Environmental Observation Network
Shallow Marine and Coastal Research Infrastructure
Natural Sciences Collection Facility
Nuclear medicine
DST have provided R51 million over
3 years for the NSCF

5. What are critical criteria for RIs?
Research Infrastructure (RI) must be used by the scientific community for conducting cutting edge research for the generation, exchange and preservation of knowledge.
A national RI is a service to research which:
Must be openly accessible to researchers
Data must be made openly accessible
Must be used for training and capacity development
Must address national priorities

6. The Natural Science Collections Facility
Challenge of transforming highly fragmented landscape, with many staffing and resourcing challenges that date back many years … to meet RI requirements

7. Co-ordinating Hub - SANBI
Central
Co-ordinating Hub - SANBI
Iziko Museum Natural Sciences
National Museum Natural Sciences
SAIAB
Eastern Cape Natural Science Museums
KZN Museum
Durban Natural Science Museums
Ditsong Museum Natural Sciences
SANBI Herbaria
ARC: National Collections
WITS Herbarium
UKZN Herbaria
WITS Palaeont-ology
UCT Bolus Herbarium

8. Overall aim of the NSCF
To ensure that collections contribute, through high quality research and data, to addressing issues of socio-economic importance

9. Objectives (red=data related):
Collections secure and accessible for research (physical and virtual collection – imaging of specimens, scanning of field notes, accession registers)
Database of collections accessible and used for managing collections, research and decision-making
Collections and data are used for research that addresses issues of national and global relevance
Collections are used as a reference for providing services to identify biological specimens
Collections valued for serving society through education, citizen science and public understanding projects

10. Current situation: total = +12 million specimens / specimen lots in 40 institutions; 5 million records in databases

11. Current situation
Challenges with software – wide range used with variation even in same institution
Data quality:
challenges with names / identifications (outdated or missing or incorrect)
locality data and georeferencing - gaps, missing, inaccurate
metadata – generally missing
Procedures, standards and guidelines – generally lacking
Capacity – major constraint (people and skills)
Images and scans of documents - no standards or systems; most documents have no digital version or even copies

12. Plans for the next 3 years
Common standards, procedures and workflows for data
Migration to standard software (BRAHMS, Specify)
Upgrading of data sets: vertebrates, macrofungi, Karoo fossils, 2 plant families (verification (including taxonomic / identification), georeferencing, cleaning)
Imaging of type specimens for the same groups – virtual collection
Scanning of accession registers, field notes
Capacity development – staff at institutions and contract staff appointed

13. Resources
Data Working Group with representatives from institutions – provide input, take decisions back to institutions for implementation
Working Group Co-ordinator – lead development of documents, and implementation of plans
SANBI BIM staff – vast experience with BRAHMS
SAIAB expertise and other expertise at institutions and access to server space for Specify
BHL – link to expertise and equipment for document scanning
Contract staff to assist with data upgrading, imaging of specimens and scanning of documents
Contract specialists for assistance with training and data migration to Specify.

14. Thanks
We are very grateful to DST for recognising the collections as important research infrastructure
Thanks to the collection institutions that are participating, and those that have offered their resources to the Facility.
We welcome suggestions!!