Helpdesk and training facilities at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, now EU BON oriented
Discipline
Biological sciences
Computer and information sciences
Earth and related Environmental sciences
Subject
Biological collection and data management
ICT
Invertebrates
Audience
Scientific
Date
2014Publisher
TDWG
Metadata
Show full item recordDescription
The Cybertaxonomy Portal of the RMCA (Royal Museum for Central Africa) was originally developed in Drupal 6 and attributed to different projects as sub-domains, either purely informative or including helpdesk and/or training facilities (e.g. the sub-domains for OpenUp! (Opening up the Natural History Heritage to Europeana), CABIN (Central African Biodiversity Information Network) and SYNTHESYS). As a task leader for the EU BON (European Biodiversity Observation Network) project, the RMCA is now also responsible for the EU BON helpdesk and training program. One of the important objectives of EU BON is to enable data integration and interoperability between various existing networks and data types (e.g. observational, ecological and remote sensing). EU BON wants to become a system of systems and therefore web service interfaces are being developed for these data using the appropriate data exchange standards and protocols. Main outputs will be new and improved data standards, innovative tools for sharing data across different systems, an online, updatable registry and metadata catalogue, and a new European Biodiversity Portal for all EU BON products and services. The helpdesk installed at the RMCA and a comprehensive training program will ensure coordination of development efforts and dissemination of the results. The Cybertaxonomy portal has been completed by an EU BON data mobilization helpdesk (http://eubon.cybertaxonomy.africamuseum.be/) developed in Drupal 7. This platform will give access to extensive documentation for the different target audiences, introduction to data standards, data sharing tools, procedures of registering data with GEOSS (Group on Earth Observations System of Systems), and recommendations from informatics and data standards task forces. A training program is dedicated to the data and metadata integration strategies, use of standards, and use of data tools. The 1st EU BON training (http://eubon.cybertaxonomy.africamuseum.be/node/5) gave a basic understanding and shared vocabulary on Information architecture and data standards used by EU BON and an introduction to main data-sharing initiatives such as GEOSS, GBIF, DataOne etc. The second training will go in-depth on the same topics, focusing on hands-on training on the use of the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT), the Darwin Core standard and the use of data publishing tools. We target an audience (consortium members and external partners) up to 25 participants.
Citation
Smirnova, L.; Mergen, P.; Theeten, F.; Saarenmaa, H.; Jacobsen, K. (2014). Helpdesk and training facilities at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, now EU BON oriented. , TDWG 2014 ANNUAL CONFERENCE: "Applications and Data Standards for Sustaining Biodiversity", TDWG,Identifiers
Type
Conference
Peer-Review
No
Language
eng