DiSSCo/GBIF seminar

Network seminar for DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections) and GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) in Norway on 6th and the 7th of February 2020. The seminar had a focus on developing a governance structure for GBIF and DiSSCo in Norway. The seminar was open to all interested parties and was streamed online as a webcast to allow for remote participants.

Rana temporaria CC0 Endresen, iNaturalist

In August this year, the DiSSCo Prepare project from the ESFRI Roadmap was financed by the EU. Norway participates in DiSSCo through the Norwegian Consortium for DiSSCo, a consortium of the four university museums, and coordinated by NHM. DiSSCo is a project about digitization, standardized operations, and virtual access to all European natural history collections. DiSSCo Prepare will have its kick-off meeting in Helsinki on February 27th and the DiSSCo General Assembly meeting on February 28th. These meetings are part of the DiSSCo Rising event starting off with the ICEDIG Final Conference on February 26th which is open to the public.
 
In GBIF, we have also had a number of developments this year. The RCN financing for the current and fourth project period (2017-2019) of the Norwegian participant node of GBIF, has been extended at its current level for the time being. We are expected to submit a new RCN Infrastructure application in 2020 for the continuation of GBIF-Norway. As part of these changes, we now want to establish a Norwegian Consortium for GBIF-Norway, with shared responsibility for providing core GBIF services in Norway.


A two-day event with three parts.

Thursday 6th February Morning (10-12): DiSSCo-Norway

Consolidating the Norwegian consortium for DiSSCo. Discussion and planning of activities. This section before lunch is most relevant for university museums in Norway.

12:00 Lunch (baguettes, served at Tøyen Manor)

Thursday 6th February Afternoon (13-16): GBIF-Norway 

Preparing a new Norwegian consortium for GBIF-Norway. Discussion, planning, and establishment. Invited participation from the GBIF secretariatLiving NorwayFinlandNetherlands, and Sweden. This section in the afternoon of February 6th is most relevant for institutions that already have (or plan to have) active participation in providing GBIF services in Norway (including DiSSCo and Living Norway).

13:00 Welcome and goals for the meeting (Hugo de Boer and Dag Endresen) (slides) (video)

13:10 Recommendations from the GBIF Secretariat on establishing effective GBIF nodes and node governance models (Mélianie Raymond, GBIF Secretariat) (video)

13:15 Recommendations from the GBIF-Norway advisory board on forming a new GBIF-Norway consortium (Fridtjof Mehlum, Nils Valland, and Solveig Bakken)

13:30 Swedish Biodiversity Data Infrastructure - SBDI (Anders Telenius) (video)

14:00 Governance of Biodiversity informatics infrastructures: experiences from Finland (Leif Schulman, LUOMUSFinBIFCETAF) online presentation (video, video-zoom)

14:30 Coffee break

15:00 Recommendations from the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Facility (Arild Lindgaard, NBIC, Artsdatabanken) (slides) (video)

15:00 Break-out group discussion

Task 1: work on forming a new consortium governance model for GBIF-Norway, including distributed responsibility for providing national GBIF-node services among consortium partners, and protocols for accepting new consortium members. Discussion on the process for preparing a GBIF-Norway research Infrastructure proposal with the application deadline in November 2020.

Task 2: collect best practices from GBIF-node and national biodiversity infrastructure governance structures established in Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, and include best practices and recommendations collected by the GBIF Secretariat.

16:00 Short wrap-up from group discussion

18:15 Hosted Dinner at SüdØst Asian CrossoverTrondheimsveien 5, 0560 Oslo

Friday 7th February - open symposium on DiSSCo and GBIF

Full day symposium on national and international initiatives and projects related to DiSSCo and GBIF. Discussion on creating a governance platform to coordinate Norwegian participation in national and international infrastructure projects in biodiversity.

Webcast with video-streaming for remote participants. Participants were asked for consent to the video-streaming and recording during the registration at arrival. The video recordings only show the presenter and not the participants.

Program - times reported as CET

09:30 Registration and coffee

10:00 Welcome to the seminar (Hugo de Boer and Dag Endresen)

10:10 Global Biodiversity Information Facility - GBIF, and governance models for national biodiversity information facilities (BIFs) (Mélianie Raymond, GBIF Secretariat) (slides) (video)

10:40 Distributed System of Scientific Collections - DiSSCo and governance models for national DiSSCo Nodes (Dimitris Koureas, DiSSCo Coordination Office) (slides) (video)

11:10 Netherlands Biodiversity Information Facility (NLBIF) as DiSSCo- and GBIF-node (Niels Raes, Naturalis) (slides) (video)

11:40 Swedish Biodiversity Data Infrastructure (SBDI), GBIF-Sweden, BioAtlas.se, Swedish LifeWatch (Anders Telenius, Swedish Museum of Natural History) (slides 1, slides 2, slides 3) (video)

12:10 Questions and discussion

12:30 Lunch (wraps, served at Tøyen Manor)

13:30 Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre - NBIC (Knut Anders Hovstad, Artsdatabanken) (slides) (video)

13:50 Using open ecology data in research and education (John Arvid Grytnes, EECRG, University in Bergen) (slides) (video)

14:10 Living Norway Ecological Data Network (Erlend Nilsen, NINA) (slides) (video)

14:30 Coffee break (with Danish pastry)

15:00 Discussion on common governance models for DiSSCo, GBIF. Do we want to build a distributed “Norwegian Biodiversity Information Facility”? Based on the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre (NBIC), GBIF-Norway, Living Norway Ecological Data Network, Norwegian Barcode of Life (NorBOL), etc?

16:00 Closing of the seminar


Meeting venue in Oslo

Venue at the Tøyen Manor (Sars gate 1) on the UiO campus Tøyen -  where the University of Oslo Natural History Museum and the University Botanical Garden are located (and where the GBIF-Norway and DiSSCo-Norway node staff are located).

Map of the Botanical Garden in Oslo
Tøyen Manor is located at 7 in the map above (Sars gate 1). (1) Main visitor entrance, museum shop (2) Robert Collects house, Zoological Museum, (3) Brøggers house, Geological Museum (closed for renovation), (4) Lids house, Botanical Museum, (5) Victoria house, greenhouse for tropical plants, (6) Palm house, greenhouse for temperate tropical zones, (7) Tøyen Manor, cafe, (8) WC, ...

Airport connection

The airport train (Flytoget) is the fastest and easiest transport from Oslo Airport (OSL) with only 19 minutes of travel time and departures every 10 minutes. A one-way ticket costs 190 NOK (approx 19 Euro). Tickets are available in the ticket machine at the airport and from the Flytoget smartphone app. The airport train stops at the Oslo Central Station (1,7 km from the museum). The website https://en-tur.no/ provides a good overview of local city transport. A single ride ticket (metro, bus, tram) is 35 NOK (approx 3,5 Euro). 

You will find many hotels and accommodation options in the city center. Some seminar participants will stay at Thon Hotel SpectrumBrugata 7, 0186 Oslo, a 1,2 km (15 minute) walk from the meeting venue. For tourist information see Visit Oslo and Visit Norway.


Registered participants representing

University of Oslo Natural History Museum (UiO NHM)

NTNU University Museum (Vitenskapsmuseet)

Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre (NBIC) Artsdatabanken

Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA)

University of Bergen (UiB), University Museum (UiB-UM)

UiT the Arctic University of Norway, University Museum

University Museum IT-organisation (MUSIT)

Distributed System of Scientific Collections - DiSSCo Secretariat

Global Biodiversity Information Facility - GBIF Secretariat

Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility (FinBIF) Finnish Museum of Natural History (LUOMUS) (online)

Netherlands Biodiversity Information Facility (NLBIF) Naturalis Biodiversity Center

Swedish Biodiversity Information Infrastructure (SBDI) Swedish Museum of Natural History

Background documents, information

GBIF (2019) Establishing an Effective GBIF Participant Node

GBIF Governance

GBIF Memorandum of Understanding

GBIF Strategic Plan 2017-2021

See also meeting information at the GBIF home page here.

Tags: GBIF, open research data, Biodiversity informatics, museomics, scientific collections, open science, fair data, DiSSCo
Published Dec. 20, 2019 12:35 PM - Last modified Oct. 5, 2020 2:45 PM