International/Interagency Collaboration – Information Technology for Environmental Information and Environmental Data Exchange Network Thomas F. Lahr, Deputy Director, BIO, USGS Bonnie C. Carroll, Sr. Consultant April 25-26, 2002 Copenhagen, Denmark National Biological Information Infrastructure science for a changing world

THE NBII First conceived in 1993 in the National Academy report, “A Biological Survey for the Nation” –Need for accessible, quality data for environmental decision-making Federation concept – government, industry, academia Program Management Office in by Biological Resources Division of USGS

The NBII The NBII is an electronic gateway to biological data and information maintained by federal, state, and local government agencies; private sector organizations; and other partners around the nation and the world.

NBII Includes: Data and information products (technical reports, lists of experts, etc.) from many different distributed sources; including government agencies at all levels, academic institutions, natural history museums and collections, non- government organizations Access to software tools for analysis and application of biological data (e.g., ecological models and simulations, GIS) Community building efforts for collaborative development of standards and procedures, data and information content, and new information technologies

Distributed Data Sets Vast Amounts of Information National Focus of NBII Varying Customer capabilities Limited Resources “Bridging” the IT & Biological communities Informatics Challenges

Reconfirmation and Expansion of NBII Objectives 1998 PCAST Report, “Teaming With Life” –Called for Next Generation NBII Advanced technological development Regionalization 2001 Academy report confirmed the interrelationship between good science and good information

PCAST NBII Goals Increase NBII content Build Next Generation NBII –CS/IT research agenda –New tools & techniques for manipulating data and making decisions –Network of regional nodes

Thematic Infrastructure Regional NBII Structure

NBII-2 Nodes: “An Enabler of biological information ” Training Node activities: Analytical capabilities Technology support Synthesis capabilities Interoperability Data warehousing Data mining Collaboratorium Education

 USGS  Bishop Museum,  Heritage  State/Federal Agencies  Community organizations  Invasive Species:  Quick Response capabilities  Training  Modeling of threats  Hazards  GAP Analysis Pacific Basin Information Node Key Partners: Topics:

Northeast Urban Ecology IN  Columbia Univ.  USGS  State/Federal Agencies  Community organizations  Socio-economic data  International biodiversity data  Databases  Interactive mapping applications Key Partners: Topics:

NBII/NABIN/IABIN/GBIF

Technology/Terminology Future Initiatives

Advanced Features Through R&D Must Deal with Content and Technology Interoperability of multiple, diverse data sets Ability to simultaneously query and interrelate across a vast amount of different data Advanced capabilities for synthesis, analysis, and correlation of all this diverse data Ability to produce and present (visualize) information in ways that can be directly understood and used by different types of users

Content Management Through Metadata and Vocabulary Standards Cataloging/Metadata Biological Nomenclature and Taxonomy –[Chemical Nomenclature] Thesaurus/Controlled Vocabulary Gazetteers/Placed-based,geo- referencing

Cataloging/Metadata Metadata for Data Sets –FGDC Standard with Biological Extension Cataloging for URLs –NBII Implementation of the Dublin Core –Adding biologically specific fields (taxonomy and geo-referencing)

Cataloging/Metadata Metadata for Data Sets –FGDC Standard with Biological Extension Cataloging for URLs –NBII Implementation of the Dublin Core –Adding biologically specific fields (taxonomy and geo-referencing)

Examples of ITIS Use - US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration –Global Plankton Database, Ocean Climate Laboratory Department of Interior –Vegetation Mapping Program –Threatened & Endangered Species System - FWS Environmental Protection Agency –STORET – National Water Resources Database –Environmental Data Registry State Governments –Virtual Library of Florida Ecological Information Universities/Museums –American Museum of Natural History Digital Library –University of Kansas - Species Analyst

International Use of ITIS CSIRO Australia Marine Laboratories Species 2000 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada – serves full ITIS database, French language interface CONABIO – Spanish language interface

Thesaurus/Controlled Vocabulary Information retrieval via subject access Theoretical approaches –Meta-thesaurus –Networked thesauri Practical approach for cataloging and retrieval on NBII today –CSA Biocomplexity thesaurus (Agricultural, Aquatic, Biological & Medical, Earth& Environmental, Social Sciences) –CERES for California

Gazetteers/Placed-based, Geo-referencing Early work with Alexandria Digital Library, Santa Barbara Focus on initiatives to spatially enable our resources – begin with North America –Build a geographic search in our Clearinghouse To include a gazetteer based on national & international standards Arc IMF 4.0 will incorporate Gazetteer service –GNIS from USGS for US –NIMA from NIMA for rest of world

Portal - 1.A Doorway, entrance, or gate 2.An entrance or a means of entrance; the local library, a portal of knowledge 3.A powerful means to business knowledge 4.User-defined, customizable 5.Integrates diverse sources of knowledge NBII Portals

My.NBII.Gov allows for… User customization – look & content Application integration Virtual communities – document sharing, issues Improved searching of all document types Integrate diverse sources of information Improved web-site and content management Distributed management Extensive document & user security Foundation to integrate with other Portals

Gadget – application or a services within the portal Several out- of-the-box gadgets In-house developed gadgets

Communities … “Virtual” Collaboration area oDiscussion Areas oDocument Sharing oCalendar oAction Item/Task List Collaboration Server: oWorkflow, Routing capabilities, Project Management

My.NBII.Gov – BioBot search

BioBot Search result…

Building a GIS Infrastructure Open GIS (OGIS) –Map Services –Register data layer –OGIS compatible clients being developed to show data layer ESRI key partner Testing many GIS configurations at regional & national level for efficacy and interoperability

Research Funding – IT in Bio Domain Expansion of BioBot Portal implementation within NBII Prototype NBII place-based interface Prototype visualization application Research into “gisting” of biological information for indexing & retrieval Research related to Wireless Application Protocol for biological data collection Future Research Efforts

Opportunities for Cooperation Build our community through existing portal Dealing with the Geo-referencing challenge Increase content in Biobot search options International Biodiversity & Ecosystems Vocabulary Development Always cooperation in standards- content and technology Agent technology development (EDEN) Multi-lingual systems Joint research funding