Introductory lecture to the Bouchout Declaration on Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management, Montpellier July 11, RMLL 2014

1. for Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management
Donat Agosti
Plazi
OpenData Week, Montpellier, July 12, 2014
Bouchout Declaration

2. Hardisty, Nature 502, 171 (2013)
BUT: predictive ecology has substantial data needs
Harfoot, BIH2013, Rome, 2013
The big question
What is the future of the biological world?
Imagine if we could:
…Predict community level dynamics of ecosystems at
scales from local to global, based on the ecology and
biology of all individual organisms

3. Decentralized biodiversity infrastructure
Plants
3,400 Herbaria worldwide
10,000 Associate curators and specialists
350,000,000 specimens in collections
180,000,000 specimens digitized
2,000,000,000 specimens including animals
Source: gbif.org; http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/IndexHerbariorum.asp

4. One collection’s view of the world
Nationaal Herbarium Nederland collection on GBIF
Source: http://www.gbif.org/dataset/7b33b040-f762-11e1-a439-00145eb45e9a

5. 200,000,000+ printed pages
1,900,000 species described
20,000,000+ species treatments
17,000 new species per year
Biodiversity libraries
BUT: The data are hidden
Incomplete digitization
Publications are not semantically
enhanced
Collections are incomplete
Data is not linked
Most data are not open

6. Names as information tags in life sciences
Names
Characteristics
Publications
GenesCollections
Specimens
Distribution

7. Coordination and Policy Development in Preparation for a
European Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management
System
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 research funding programme
(pro-)iBiosphere

8. iBiosphere
Biodiversity Knowledge Management System

9. Create digital objects
+ Identifiers and resolvers
+ Open Access
+ Legislation
+ Adequate infrastructure
+ Sustainable and permanent infrastructure
+ Reliable services for partners in research projects and society
Seamless Global Virtual Research Knowledge Management System
(European Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System)
Biodiversity Knowledge Management System

10. Why another declaration?

11. free of charge online access to EU-funded research
…
essential for Europe's ability to enhance its economic
performance and improve the capacity to compete through
knowledge
http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/open-access-scientific-information

12. Access to digital data sets resulting from federally funded research
….
will accelerate scientific breakthroughs and innovation, promote
entrepreneurship, and enhance economic growth and job
creation.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-access-results-federally-funded-research

13. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/news.2011.281.html
800 billion USD have been generated
by the human genome project

14. After all, there is a Budapest
Declaration, a Berlin Declaration, a
Bethesda Declaration…

15. … but additional messages:
Direct access to digital content

16. … but additional messages:
Direct access to digital content
Re-acting: The biodiversity community
is re-acting together to novel
environmental, scientific and societal
challenges

17. … but additional messages:
Direct access to digital content
Re-acting: The biodiversity community is
re-acting together to novel environ-
mental, scientific and societal challenges
Third leg: digital content as commitment

18. … but additional messages:
Direct access to digital content
Re-acting: The biodiversity community is
re-acting together to novel environ-
mental, scientific and societal challenges
Third leg: digital content as commitment
Catalyst for discussions

19. Bouchout Declaration
Bouchout Declaration
http://bouchoutdeclaration.org

20. Launched: June 12, 2014
Bouchout Declaration

21. signatories
Bouchout Declaration

23. (75)
(147)

24. Bouchout Declaration

25. Bouchout Declaration
GOAL: Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management
As signatories, we encourage an overarching approach
to Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management which is
based on the following fundamental principles:

26. Bouchout Declaration
Open Access
The free and open use of digital resources about
biodiversity and associated access services

27. Bouchout Declaration
Licenses
Licenses or waivers that grant or allow all users a
free, irrevocable, world-wide, right to copy, use,
distribute, transmit and display the work publicly
as well as to build on the work and to make
derivative works, subject to proper attribution
consistent with community practices, while
recognizing that providers may develop
commercial products with more restrictive
licensing.

28. Bouchout Declaration
Licenses ctd.
Data and research results are not copyrighted
and thus no license should be added
If possible, publications should be created as
Open Access works

29. Bouchout Declaration
Policy
Policy developments that will foster free and
open access to biodiversity data

30. Bouchout Declaration
Attribution
Tracking the use of identifiers in links and
citations to ensure that sources and suppliers of
data are assigned credit for their contributions

31. Bouchout Declaration
Infrastructure
An agreed infrastructure, standards and protocols
to improve access to and use of open data

32. Bouchout Declaration
Registers
Registers for content and services to allow
discovery, access and use of open data

33. Bouchout Declaration
Persistent Identifiers
Persistent identifiers for data objects and physical
objects such as specimens, images and taxonomic
treatments with standard mechanisms to take
users directly to content and data

34. Bouchout Declaration
Linked Open Data
Linking data using agreed vocabularies, both
within and beyond biodiversity, that enable
participation in the Linked Open Data Cloud

35. Bouchout Declaration
Development
Dialogue to refine the concept, priorities and
technical requirements of Open Biodiversity
Knowledge Management

36. Bouchout Declaration
Business
A sustainable Open Biodiversity Knowledge
Management that is attentive to scientific,
sociological, legal, and financial aspects

37. Sign now!
When do you sign?
bouchout@plazi.org
bouchoutdeclaration.org