Introducing Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network: linking disciplines for better environmental outcomes. Nikki Thurgate
TERN: Infrastructure and networks to support a coordinated and collaborative ecosystem science community Enabling sustained, long-term collection, storage, synthesis and sharing of ecosystem data Connecting science with policy and management TERN: Transforming Australian ecosystem science
How TERN fits together
Data framework All funded and included data MUST be openly available Includes code, models etc. AEKOS fully semantic searching supported by ontological model Structured metadata approach (Australian and global standards) Difficulty with older data but valuable
Data approach Includes ‘big data’ from e.g flux and remote sensing communities Challenges Provenance Integration Cultural change Competition Interoperability
Challenges Lindenmayer and Likens, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America Benchmarking Open Access Science Against Good Science. ‘…..we open the door to a generation of “junk science”…. ‘…issues of an emerging generation of what we call “parasitic” science….’
Building a true network Coalition of the willing Stakeholders are part of the process Build relationships Build trust Common goals and questions Flexibility
Licensing approach Least restrictive approach must be used Allows for sensitivities Attribution mandated Creative commons Australia 3.0 Encourages interactions between data users and owners
International challenges DataONE e.g uses CC v 0.0 Does not protect anyone outside USA We can create DOI’s that are unique to each data set extracted but can create massive attributions (exponential increase with international interoperability) Need to build safe environment to encourage partnerships with scientists Protection of intellectual property rights
International challenges Semantics! Resources for international approaches Bottom-up vs top-down Sensitive data Legal entities Duplication vs Innovation BUT BENEFITS OUTWAY CHALLENGES
Connecting with TERN