TERN Symposium 2011

1. Eco-informatics Facility An Introduction Presentation by Prof Andrew Lowe

2. Purpose of Facility - “To end ecological data anarchy” Provide a cohesive framework for data and information management and discovery of Australian ecosystems data Acquire key, significant existing data from data custodians Provide the foundational infrastructure to assist and support the multi-scale plot system (LAMPS, AusPlots, LTERs, Super Sites) Contribute to the TERN Central portal and facilitate discoverability of whole-of-TERN data

3. Key Questions being Addressed Ecosystem researchers and managers want to know: What national ecological data are currently available? What are the access and licensing conditions? How can I determine the suitability of these data for my research? How can data I need from different sources be combined? How do I extract and download the data for my needs? How can I make my data available to other researchers? What analysis tools are available? “answering these questions facilitates a better understanding and management of biodiversity and natural resources in Australia”

4. Infrastructure to be Delivered Web-based “one-stop-shop” portal to browse, search, display, extract and analyse ecosystem data Repository based on semantic data integration to enable comparison of related but different data – “apples with apples” Facility for researchers to submit their own data Metadata capability to enable discovery and extraction of multiple autonomous data sets Tools for visualisation and analysis of ecosystem data

5. ECO-INFORMATICS IN CONTEXT ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH & MANAGEMENT COMMUNITY SYNTHESIS TOOLS, ANALYSIS & VISUALISATION DATA TERN DATA ANALYSIS & INTEGRATION MODELLING ACEAS ECO-INFORMATICS VISUALISATION & ANALYSIS TOOLS ECO-INFORMATICS PORTAL DATA PORTAL DATA PORTAL DATA PORTAL DATA PORTAL NATIONAL PLOT-BASED DATA ECO-INFORMATICS (+ DATA STORE) PLOT DATA FLUX DATA AUSPLOTS LTERs SUPERSITES OZFLUX COAST AUSCOVER (DATA STORE) SOILS OAKRIDGEEXT. DATA STORAGE CSIROEXT. DATA STORAGE ASRIS EXT. DATA STORAGE

7. Designed for incremental investment

8. Goal of integrated data to enable synthesis

9. Flexible enough to adapt to whatever data is provided

10. Variable approach for interaction with partnersMode C DIFFICULTY Full semantic integration DataONE B+ Basic fields e.g. location, taxa ALA B Autonomous content ESA A Descriptive metadata ANDS

11. An example of a single record “Graph” Observation Vocabulary Original Record A sub-set of SA Pastoral vegetation site visit (full “graph” below):

12. Our plan for community engagement Reference Groups Prototypes and Demonstrators Online development news, technical documentation and discussion forum Engagement with data providers (who are also consumers) Consultation with key ecological researchers Liaison with key interest groups e.g. ESA, Birds Australia etc Strategic & Coordinated Communications Plan (UA) Presentations, Publications, Fliers, Newsletters

13. Acknowledgements Partners University of Adelaide SA Department of Environment and Natural Resources State and Territory Agencies and researchers providing ecological data LAMPS – Ausplots, LTERs, Supersites Other TERN Facilities (ACEAS, e-MAST, AusCover, Coastal) Collaborators Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) Australian National Data Services (ANDS) Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) Others; ARCS, IMOS, NeCTAR, AusScope, eResearchSA

14. Facility Contact Details Eco-informatics Coordinator - Craig Walker craig.walker@adelaide.edu.au Eco-informatics Data Facilitator -Dr Anita Smyth anita.smyth@adelaide.edu.au Eco-informatics Researcher Liaison - Dr David Turner d.turner@adelaide.edu.au Eco-informatics ICT PM – Martin Pullan martin.pullan@adelaide.edu.au Director UA - Prof Andy Lowe andrew.lowe@adelaide.edu.au Technical Director - Dr Paul Coddington paul.coddington@ersa.edu.au