Ingesting marine data

The partners of EMODnet have begun to have some success in making data stored in national data centres, geological surveys and hydrographic agencies available for re-use. The challenge now is to capture data that is being generated in new research projects or licensed facilities offshore. Very often the owners of the data are not against providing the data in principle but do not know how to do it. The aim therefore is to develop a process that helps these users deliver their data for safe-keeping and re-use. The process should allow recognition of the ownership of the data and standardised conditions for release (for instance a delay to allow the data –owner to publish.

According to the Roadmap for Marine Knowledge

"Whether the data delivery is voluntary or obligatory, everybody gains if the process is made as straightforward as possible. This requires a facility that provides instructions, ingests the data, checks them and directs them to the appropriate repository for stewardship and dissemination. Up to now the focus of EMODnet has been distribution of data but some attention now needs to be devoted to ingestion of data. A call for tender to build such a facility is due to be launched in 2015."

Pesant from MARUM showed how PANGAEA ingested data from research projects and directed them towards the appropriate repository. He emphasised the importance of establishing a conversation with the data provider in order to help them format the data correctly and provide the right metadata. Feedback to the data provider on the progress of ingestion is essential. Guidelines can help but the process can never be fully automated (presentation)

Schäfer from the Alfred Wegener Institute showed that enormous amounts of benthic data were being made collected during the design, construction and operation of German wind farms. These would be exceedingly valuable to the scientific community or for reporting environmental status but are only available for re-use in a highly aggregated form. (presentation)

Schaap from MARIS explained how national marine oceanographic services worked together under the SeaDataNet umbrella to develop a common vocabulary and indexing system so that data can be found and assembled using a shopping basket approach (presentation)

Pfeiffenberger from the Alfred Wegener Institute explained requirements for looking after data used in scientific articles.

Claus from VLIZ explained the challenges in safeguarding data from Belgian research projects, linking publications to the underlying data and extracting data products from EMODnet thematic groups (presentation)

Bohle from the Commission's Research and innovation Directorate General explained that the Commission was committed to open data. In a substantial number of 2014-2015 Horizon 2020 projects , projects will be obliged to make their data available unless they specifically opt out. Projects on "Climate action and environment" are among those. "Blue growth" projects are not although projects may opt in if the partners agree (presentation)

Shepherd from the Commission's Maritime Policy and Fisheries Directorate General thanked the participants. The scope for action is becoming clearer. We need to continue this conversation.

Participants

Martin Bohle European Commission, RTD, Jan Bart Calewaert EMODnet secretariat, Trine Christiansen European Environment Agency, Simon Claus Flemish Marine Institute, VLIZ, Klaas Deneudt Flemish Marine Institute, VLIZ, Alenka Kampl European Commission, MARE, Hans Pfeiffenberger Alfred Wegener Institute, Bruno Rakedjian European Commission, ENV, Dick Schaap, MARIS, Angela Schāfer Alfred Wegener Institute, Iain Shepherd European Commission, MARE, Marco Weydert European Commisaion, RTD