The inaugural Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Biological Data Training Workshop was held February 8-9, 2018 in Seattle, WA. The workshop built on the successful partnership between IOOS and the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) to develop a community of practice around the management and analysis of biological ocean observing data. It provided hands-on training to partners from the IOOS Regional Associations, Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), Federal and State government agencies, Smithsonian MarineGEO, Ocean Tracking Network, Animal Telemetry Network, Ocean Networks Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The objective of the workshop was to educate participants in the benefits, goals, technology and process to make biological data more widely accessible in standardized formats and disseminated via community systems.
The workshop began with an introduction to applications of biological data, including the MBON Portal (presented by Axiom’s Brian Stone, Luc Mehl, and Stacey Buckelew), OBIS Portal, MBON Explorer and Infographics, and MBON Seascapes. Participants were then introduced to IOOS and OBIS standards and tools for biological data and web services for data access, like rOBIS and ERDDAP. Following these presentations were several hands-on sessions where participants could begin to align their own data to the Darwin Core standards, WoRMS taxonomy, and metadata standards that are used for reporting on global biological diversity data.
Follow these links to visit the MBON Data Portal (v2.0) or read the full article.
“This workshop is an important first step towards greater collaboration in making marine biological data available on an international scale. As the community of practice continues to develop we will see significant developments in our ability to understand our oceans.” – Kevin Gallagher, USGS Associate Director for Core Science Systems
Workshop participants at the first IOOS Biological Data Training Workshop. Photo Credit: NOAA/IOOS