Part of the NBN Conference 2019 includes a series of Network Knowledge Exchange sessions.  These sessions will be held on the afternoon of Wednesday 13 November and are an opportunity to find out more about a particular aspect of work related to Network business. Some will be presentation led, others will be discussion based.

The five sessions will run in parallel over the course of the afternoon, but this year, some of the sessions will be repeated allowing delegates to attend two different sessions.  This is based on feedback from last year.  The themes and timings are as shown below:

14.00 – 15:15  Parallel sessions
15.15 – 15:45  Coffee / tea break
15:45 – 17:00  Sessions continue

The available sessions are as follows and final details will be available over the coming weeks. You will be asked to select your preferred session(s) when booking your place at the Conference.

1. Whose data are they anyway? (session will run once for the full afternoon)

Interactive session on data ownership, copyright, fair dealing and licensing of biodiversity records and other data that may be collected by citizens, professionals and commercial companies. What are the opportunities and challenges when publishing, sharing and reusing them?

Session leads: Veerle Van den Eynden, Research Data Services Manager, UK Data Service and Tom Hunt, National Coordinator for the Association of Local Environmental Records Centres (ALERC)

Veerle manages the Research Data Management team for the UK Data Service. This team provides expertise, guidance and training on data management and data sharing to researchers, to promote good data practices and optimise data sharing. This includes ethical and legal aspects of data sharing and reuse. Veerle also has research expertise studying interactions between people, plants and the environment.

Tom has been looking at these issues on and off for nearly ten years now, in his work for ALERC. ALERC represents Local Environmental Records Centres, organisations that support recording and supply data services at a local level.

Format of the session: After an introduction on the legal aspects of data ownership and best practice guidance for sharing and reuse, interactive group discussions will focus on case studies of relevance to the audience. Case studies will be collected in advance from real-case situations, or can be brought by participants. Examples may be using data already in the public domain, reusing data owned by deceased people, what licensing means for data reuse, how recorders want their data used, etc.

Summary of the session: Whose data are they anyway? – Knowledge Exchange Session Summary.

Presentation from the session

 

2. FAIR Data Principles – improving the reusability of NBN data holdings (session will run twice – each session is 1 hour and 15 minutes long)

The FAIR Data Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) were published in 2016 as a set of guidelines for sharing data in a way that will maximise their reuse (Wilkinson et al. (2016) FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship, https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201618).

Session lead: Co-lead Sophia Ratcliffe, NBN Atlas Data Manager.

Format of the session: This workshop will introduce the Principles and explore how they can be applied to the access and use of biodiversity data. The session will include a general discussion on how to ensure a direct link between the Principles and the ‘real world’ sharing, storage of, access to and use of biodiversity data.

Summary of the session: FAIR Data Principles – Knowledge Exchange Session Summary.

 

3. Providing multi-regional and national commercial services in collaboration with data providers (session will run twice – each session is 1 hour and 15 minutes long)

The focus of this session is to discuss ways to make the NBN Trust and the Network more sustainable. The NBN Trust has been awarded an HLF grant to build the resilience and sustainability of the NBN Trust. One potential method for building sustainability is to provide income generating services in collaboration with data providers, reducing the reliance on government and/or grant funding for the continued survival of the NBN Trust

Session leads: Jo Judge, NBN Trust Chief Executive and Mandy Rudd, Chief Executive of Greenspace Information for Greater London (GiGL)

Format of the session:  Initial presentation of the proposed services, followed by discussion of the feasibility of these services, brain storming other potential methods of generating income and what needs to be done to implement the services

Summary of the session: Providing multi-regional and national commercial services in collaboration with data providers – Knowledge Exchange Session Summary

 

4. NBN Atlas Spatial Analysis Tool (session will run twice – each session is 1 hour and 15 minutes long)

The aim of this session is to provide an overview of the capabilities of the existing NBN Atlas’ spatial portal and to review the new functionalities and tools that the Atlas of Living Australia has recently made available to us.  We are keen to explore and discuss with attendees how useful these capabilities and functionalities might be for your work.

Session lead: Christine Johnston, NBN Atlas Project Officer and Reuben Roberts, NBN Atlas System Developer

Format of the session: The session will begin with a look at the NBN Atlas’ Spatial Portal as it is now and will move on to provide information on the new functionality that could be introduced in the future. It will then be an open forum for discussion around what delegates need from the Portal in order to carry out their work.

Summary of the session: Exploring the capabilities of the NBN Atlas spatial portal – Knowledge Exchange Session Summary 

 

5. iSpot at 10 years old: What’s happened so far and what’s next? (session will run twice – each session is 1 hour and 15 minutes long)

www.iSpotnature.org was launched by the Open University in 2009 to help anyone build their species identification skills and learn about biodiversity. Ten years on and iSpot has grown as a citizen science platform amassing a collection of over 43,000 species through a database of over 1.5 million images; contributed from observations by our online community of over 70,000 wildlife enthusiasts and experts. As we plan for the future what are the trends from iSpot data and where can this lead us? How can iSpot support biological recording?  What can recording schemes and societies do for iSpot and vice versa?

This session will share highlights from iSpot’s rich dataset, reflecting on ten years of activity; gathering ideas, and feedback as we discuss plans for the future.

Session lead: Mike Dodd, iSpot Curator, the Open University; co-lead Rachel Redford, eSTEeM Centre and Citizen Science Support Assistant, The Open University.

Format of session: This will be a collaborative session with an introductory presentation exploring the iSpot data that has been generated to date, followed by group discussion, brainstorming and Q&A with delegates around their ideas, experiences and approaches using iSpot, and share plans and opportunities for the future.