Global Biodiversity Information Facility Participants’ Report 2011 Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)

GBIF Participants’ Report 2011 Background and context GBIF has run an online Participant Reporting System in its current form from The previous reports are available here: 2009: : In response to feedback that the previous reports were too lengthy, the 2011 Participants’ Report is presented in this format of a deck of slides to enable reuse by Participants in relevant presentations. These slides are a complete analysis of the data provided by GBIF Participants in 2011, including a regional view to support the work of the regional subcommittees. Trends from are included where a sufficient number of Participants have responded to a question over the three years. A highlights presentation, presented to the Governing Board at their 19 th meeting in Lillehammer, 2012 will be available after the meeting here:

2010: 94 page report 2011: Deck of slides available for use in relevant GBIF meetings 2011 Participant Report: New format

GBIF Participants’ Report 2011 Contents I Participant Reporting System objectives 2011 Response Rates Section 1: Engagement – National Nodes – Regional Activities – Training – Outreach and Communication Section 2: Informatics Infrastructure – Priorities for Informatics Infrastructure

GBIF Participants’ Report 2011 Contents II Section 3: Biodiversity Science, Content and Use – Discovery and metadata – Digitization and mobilization – Names services (ECAT) – Data use Section 4: Strategic Partnerships and Uptake – Strategic partnerships – Participant use of the GBIF 2011 Work Programme Section 5: Evaluating the Participant Reporting System – Three main problems identified – Value of the Participant Reporting System to GBIF’s Participants – Lessons learnt – Conclusions

1.To provide a channel for GBIF Participants to report on the status of their activities and their implementation of the GBIF Work Programme 2.To enable GBIF Participants to communicate their needs and priorities to the GBIF Secretariat 3.To provide an overview of the activities carried out by the GBIF network as a whole Participant Reporting System Objectives

Response rates for countries and economies

AfricaAsiaEuropeLatin AmericaNorth AmericaOceania BeninChinese TaipeiAndorraArgentinaCanadaAustralia Burkina FasoIndiaAustriaColombiaUSANew Zealand CameroonIndonesiaBelgiumCosta Rica GhanaJapanDenmarkCuba GuineaPakistanFinlandMexico KenyaPhilippinesFrancePeru South AfricaRepublic of KoreaGermany TogoIceland UgandaIreland Luxembourg Norway Poland Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden The Netherlands United Kingdom Country and Economy Participants providing (partial) 2011 reports Response rates for countries and economies

Country and Economy Participants not providing 2011 reports AfricaAsiaEuropeLatin AmericaNorth AmericaOceania Central African Republic BulgariaChile CongoEstoniaNicaragua Equatorial GuineaPortugalUruguay MadagascarSwitzerland Mauritania Morocco Tanzania Response rates for countries and economies

Response rates for organizations

Organization Participants providing (partial) 2011 reports: 1.Bioversity International 2.DIVERSITAS 3.Encyclopedia of Life (EoL) 4.Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) 5.ETI Bioinformatics 6.ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability 7.Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) 8.Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN) 9.International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPIE) 10.International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) 11.International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) 12.NatureServe 13.Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGEN) 14.Society for the Management of Electronic Biodiversity Data (SMEBD) 15.Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) Response rates for organizations

Organization Participants not providing 2011 reports: 1.Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) 2.AndinoNET 3.Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS) 4.ASEANET 5.BGCI 6.BioNET 7.CABI 8.CBOL 9.CETAF 10.CYTED 11.DiscoverLife 12.EASIANET 13.EEA 14.Finding Species 15.FreshwaterLife 16.IBOL 17.ICZN 18.ISIS 19.MSEF 20.NSCA 21.OBIS 22.PBIF 23.SAFRINET 24.SCAR 25.SINEPAD 26.Species TDWG 28.WCMC 29.WDCBE 30.WFCC 31.Wildscreen Response rates for organizations

National Nodes – Origin and development status of GBIF’s national Nodes – Barriers to the development of national Nodes – Work areas covered by national Nodes Regional Activities Training Outreach and Communication Section 1: Engagement

Origin of national GBIF networks

Development of national Nodes

Participant Report , N=25 Countries and Economies providing reports over 3 years Trend in Nodes' development

Budget for national Nodes

Staffing of national Nodes

n indicates the number of Nodes from each region that replied to the question

Sustainability of national Nodes

These three barriers have consistently been reported by national Nodes as the top three most significant barriers in 2009, 2010 and 2011

National data portals

Use of national data portals

Collectively the lists maintained by 41 country Participants include an estimated total of 3,058 institutions and 12,283 people National networks

n indicates the number of Nodes from each region that replied to the question

Collectively a total of 1442 data holding institutions were reported as being involved in the national Nodes of the 39 country Participants that answered this question

Providing information services

Regional activities – national Nodes

Regional activities - organizations

National Nodes providing training

4 organization Participants organized 7 training events in 2011, through which a total of 64 people were trained on GBIF related activities 1 of these training events benefitted from the train-the-trainers approach Organizations providing training

Only 5 country Participants had submitted digital training materials to be included in the Online Resource Centre National Nodes developing training materials

Organizations developing training materials

National Nodes participating in GBIF training

Trend in training participation Participant Report , N=24 Countries and Economies providing reports over 3 years

Organizations participating in GBIF training

National Nodes involved in outreach

Organizations involved in outreach

Collectively 30 country Participants reported that they circulate GBits to a combined total of 7517 people Communication: GBIF’s newsletter In addition, 2 organization Participants reported that they circulate GBits to a combined total of 1010 people

n indicates the number of Nodes from each region that replied to the question Communication: GBIF’s newsletter

Priorities for Informatics Infrastructure National Nodes’ priorities Organizations’ priorities Section 2: Informatics Infrastructure

25 country Participants provided responses over the three years. Their top priorities each year were consistently: Tools to customize and deploy data portals Tools for harvesting and indexing datasets from your community of data providers Tools for documenting and sharing metadata Informatics priorities

Discovery and metadata Digitization and mobilization Names services (ECAT) Data use Section 3: Biodiversity Science: Content and Use

National Nodes’ metadata policies

National Nodes’ metadata catalogues

N=29 Countries and Economies providing reports over 3 years Metadata catalogues

2011 Participant Report, N=58 Countries and Economies Data mobilization strategies

Data mobilization by organizations

Countries promoting data publishing

Organizations promoting data publishing

National Nodes improving data quality

Actions to improve data quality

Organizations improving data quality

Actions to improve data quality

Checklist publishing by National Nodes

Checklist publishing by national Nodes

Support for checklist publishing

National Nodes’ data use projects

Trend in involvement in data use Participant Report , N=22 Countries and Economies providing reports over 3 years

Organizations’ data use projects

Scientific publications – national Nodes

Scientific publications - organizations

Value of GBIF mediated data – national Nodes

Value of GBIF mediated data - organizations

Strategic partnerships Participant use of the GBIF 2011 Work Programme Section 4: Strategic Partnerships and Uptake

2011 Participant Report, N=46 Organization Participants Strategic Partnerships

Use of GBIF Work Programme – national Nodes

Top three useful services for national Nodes st Informatics infrastructure provided by GBIF GBIF technical recommendations, documents and guidelines GBIF Data Portal ( 2nd GBIF Communications Portal ( GBIF meetings (regional, global) Guidance and assistance from the GBIF Secretariat Staff 3rd GBIF Data Portal ( Guidance and assistance from the GBIF Secretariat Staff Exchange of experience and know-how with other Participant Nodes at GBIF meetings N=26 Countries and Economies providing reports over 3 years

Use of GBIF Work Programme - organizations

Three main problems identified Value of the Participant Reporting System to GBIF’s Participants Lessons learnt Conclusions Section 5: Evaluating the Participant Reporting System

Trend in response rates Problem 1: Low response rates, incomplete reports, patchy data GBIF Participant Report

Feedback on PRS scope and system Problem 2: Too many questions, but still not enough detail overall “The report is useful and relevant, but it is too long” “I believe the report is not sufficiently detailed to figure out why at the participant level progress is not as high as it should be.” Problem 3: Using questionnaire software for reporting purposes “The report could provide more summary information about my NODE extracted from the GBIF data portal and other GBIF information systems.” “A way of improving the system could be to reuse the information from previous reports”

Value of the Participant Reporting System to country Participants

Value of the Participant Reporting System to organization Participants

PRS lessons learnt 1.GBIF receives information from Participants through various streams that need to be brought together in an automated way

PRS lessons learnt 2.Participant needs and priorities benefit from discussion in order to better understand the requirements and way forward  Through regional meetings, the NSG, and focal Nodes groups, develop recommendations and feasible approaches in consensus between the regions

Conclusions The GBIFS will not run the Participant Reporting System in the same way for 2012 GBIF is focusing on improving those network status metrics which could be made available through country and regional pages to be developed in the new Portal in an automated way The Nodes Steering Group (NSG) is now a functional standing committee providing rich recommendations through regional reports and input on Nodes’ priorities to the GBIF Work Programme The GBIF Secretariat proposes to work with the NSG to devise a new set of metrics to be assessed through regional reporting to complement information available through the portal