Introduction to OBIS-USABiological Data,

Applications,&

Relationships

March 14, 2011

Topics

• What is OBIS-USA?

• What do people do with OBIS-USA?

• OBIS-USA relationships

What is OBIS-USA – Organizationally?

• OBIS-USA is the US National Node of

the International OBIS Program

• A US Resource for Biogeography

• OBIS-USA is a USGS / NBII Program

• University of Colorado Partner –

Informatics Science and Technology

• OBIS origin in context of Census of

Marine Life (CoML completion, 2010)

What do people do with OBIS-USA?

Participants Put Data In

Users Get Data Out

• Facilitated by OBIS-USA• Standards-Content-QA• Manual vs Automation

• Map, Query, Table, Graph

• Web Services (ERDDAP)• Data and Metadata

• Facilitated by OBIS-USA

What do people do with OBIS-USA? (more)

• CMSP, IOOS Examples• Biogeography plus richer

uses

Enable Applications

• Study Dataset, Taxon, Geog

• Find Associated Resources

• Accessibility of Published Data (External and Internal)

• Expansion of Uses• Joint Opportunties

Discovery and Referral

Support Community

What is OBIS Data?

• Biogeography

• Taxon – Location - Date, plus “richness”

• Interoperable

• Aggregation across all OBIS participants

• Standards

• Darwin Core – vOBIS

• Darwin Core – Ratified

• FGDC

• Connected

• Documented and hyperlinked

What is OBIS Data?Data:Biogeography data. The standard is Ratified Darwin Core.

Thousands of records from each participant, interoperable.

Metadata:Documentation of each participating dataset. FGDC format. One for each dataset.

Users Get Data Out of OBIS-USA

User Request for Data

The user can request data by Dataset, Taxon, and Geography

Result:Data & Metadata,representing any datasets that match request.

Participants Put Data In OBIS-USA(Facilitated by OBIS-USA)

Participant original data(various products)

Original Metadata(as available)

• OBIS-USA and participant get informed re: relevant features of the data.

• OBIS-USA leads with materials, education, analysis.

• OBIS-USA assists in extract “pre-formatting”.

• OBIS-USA does content and quality reviews, gives feedback to originator.

• OBIS-USA completes formatting for standards.

• OBIS-USA builds metadata from existing, plus interviews and uses development tools for FGDC, reviews with originator.

• OBIS-USA produces FGDC and GCMD.

• OBIS-USA offers data and metadata on public site and web services.

Now Data Integrated into OBIS-USA

User Request for Data

(multiplied by allthe other datasets in OBIS-USA.)

Who are OBIS-USA Participants?

• US Federal – NOAA, USGS, BOEMRE,

BLM, EPA, NSF

• Participants mainly at a level within

agency – e.g., a program or division

• US States

• Universities and Museums

• Private Research

Biogeography

• Related terms: Biodiversity, Occurrence,

Observation, Specimen,

Presence-Absence-Abundance

• Well defined classes of data:• Location• Sampling Event• Occurrence• Taxon

• Effective for Structure – Effective for

Detail

Darwin Core

• A Standard for Occurrence Data

• Widely Adopted and Vital

• TDWG-Ratifiedhttp://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/

• Natural History Heritage

• Compatibility of Specimens and

Surveys

• Extensibility in Biological and Physical

Data

Metadata – Dataset Documentation

• OBIS Heritage of GCMD

• Current practice: FGDC to NBII

Metadata Clearinghouse (and continue

GCMD)

• Metadata Goals• Identification / Attribution / Citation

• History and Quality

• Referral

• Discovery

• Understanding and Use

Usefulness of Metadata(Dataset Documentation – FGDC Details)

• Identification & Attribution

• Citation• Data History and Quality

• Referral• Publications• Home Site and Archives• Related Datasets (other

Biology – or other types such as Physical Data

• Discovery• Keywords and Summary

• Understanding and Use• Abstract, Methods, etc.

Data

User

These features of metadata are available to the user on OBIS-USA.

Physical Data

• OBIS-USA has a very high priority

goal to enable integration of data

types, such as biological data with

physical data.

• R&D Approaches• Web Service Integration

• OBIS-USA-Resident Physical Data

• Active Referral