1. Robert Branton Dalhousie University Global.OceanTrack.org
“Open Data and Information for a Changing Planet”
GeoNOVA - Spring into Geomatics Conference
Best Western Glengarry, Truro NS
May 31, 2013
Planet under Pressure: Data Challenges from Local to Global
Ocean
Tracking
Network
The Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) is a Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) – International Joint Ventures Fund global research and technology development project headquartered at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.
Starting in 2008, the OTN began deploying Canadian state-of-the-art acoustic receivers and oceanographic monitoring equipment in key ocean locations around the world to investigate movements and survival of marine animals carrying acoustic tags (pingers) in association with oceanographic conditions.
This map which appears on our members website shows the location of 164 data collections currently contained in the OTN data warehouse.
OTN deployments are expected occur in all of the world’s five oceans and span all seven continents.
OTN currently has guaranteed funding to 2017.
Robert Branton
Dalhousie University
Global.OceanTrack.org

2. Operating Passive Acoustic Moorings
Tracking instruments …
Operating Passive Acoustic Moorings
Acoustic receivers
~ 800 metre spacing
~ metre depth
models / battery life
VR2W / 1 yr
VR3 / 3 yr
VR4 / 5 yr
The OTN uses both satellite and acoustic telemetry tag data. Oceanographic variables are measured by sensors on tagged animals and other oceanographic instruments and then transmitted to satellites in space, lines of receivers on the ocean floor or to robotic submarines (gliders).
-Current practice is for the receivers and associated instruments placed on the ocean floor to be periodically recovered and or downloaded via acoustic modems to research vessels and then loaded to a central database such as at Dalhousie.
-Developments are underway to also use robotic submarines to offload the receiver lines.
-Receivers are placed at 800 metre intervals at depths of 50 to 200 metres
-Life of the receivers depends on the size of the battery and can be up to 5 years.
-The Halifax Line, the world’s longest acoustic telemetry line is 156 km long and consists of 265 receivers.
Its zig zag shape avoids several active fishing grounds.
We can so far identify about 80% of the tags we detect.
Species being detected include: Atlantic bluefin tuna, Atlantic cod, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sturgeon, spiny dogfish, and white shark.
Liquid Robotics
Wave Glider
OTN’s Halifax Line is world’s longest acoustic telemetry line!

3. Surgically Implanting Pinger Tags
Tracking instruments …
Surgically Implanting Pinger Tags
VEMCO acoustic tags
Optional Sensors
Temperature
Depth
Acceleration
Acoustic tags are surgically implanted into fish
Life of the tags depends on size of the battery, ranging from 3 months to 5 years.
On the left is a salmon smolt and on the right is a bluefin tuna.
In addition to an ID, simply saying ‘I am here’, tags can detect and transmit depth, temperature and acceleration, that is movement.
Tags can be programmed to transmit at various time intervals.
The must however be near a receiver for for the transmission to be detected and recorded.
And the receiver has to offloaded for the detections to be used by a scientist.
Clearly most transmissions don’t get detected.

4. Principles, Guidelines and Policies
11/12/2018
Principles, Guidelines and Policies
OECD
CFI / NSERC
Develop policies covering responsibilities of various parties involved in data-related activities
Negotiate data sharing arrangements at initial proposal stage.
Reward initial contributors with temporary exclusive use of data.
Develop a secure and easy to use Internet systems.
Be explicit about standards and promote / adopt most advanced practices.
2011 Canadian Research Data Summit
data from public funded research should be openly available in a timely manner as a condition of funding
Exceptions being sought by OTN include:
not reporting location information on endangered species as a means of protecting them from illegal harvest,
protecting the thesis data for Highly Qualified Personnel who are in training.
OTN’s original 2008 data policy (members.oceantrack.org/data/data-collection/otn-data-policy) was modeled on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 2006 Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data. Much has changed since 2008, especially with regards to the evolution of national and international standards for data sharing. In 2011 the Canadian Research Data Summit resulted in a unified position of Canadian funding agencies—including OTN’s principal funding agencies Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and Social Sciences and Health Research Council (SSHRC) — to require that all data from publically funded research be made openly available in a timely manner. Meeting this standard will be a condition for all grantees to maintain funding from these agencies. However, it is also anticipated that there may be exceptions to the policy provided in some circumstances that permit investigators to restrict access to data for limited periods. Examples from the OTN context could include refraining from reporting location information on endangered species that network investigators are tracking, in order to protect the animals from illegal harvesting, and protecting thesis data for Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) who are in training. In anticipation of this, OTN has posted a revised policy at: members.oceantrack.org/data/data-collection/policyhighlights. The POST 2010 policy document can found at:

5. Members.OceanTrack.org/data/data-collection/otn-data-workflow
Data Operations
Data warehouse and associated workflow
Collaborator’s data are stored in a separate schema (userid) within an open source database. Collaborators can be either a Deployment Collaborator, Tracker Collaborator, or Data Collaborator. Software used includes: RedHat Linux, PLONE CMS, PostgreSQL PostGIS, GeoServer, R and RStudio.
Members.OceanTrack.org/data/data-collection/otn-data-workflow

6. Metadata and Data OTN discovery metadata are hyperlinked.
Wide variety of browsing options.
Free and open access to public data products.
Controlled access to private data products.

7. Visualization - GoogleEarth
Authoritative, discoverable, accessible and interoperable research data on local, regional and global scales, for example…
Use this slide if needed to summarize the major take home points
Also use this slide to show your contact info and links to more info about what you do
members.oceantrack.org/etc/ge/OceanTrackingNetwork.kmz

8. External products … Oceanographic data
International Oceanographic Data Exchange (IODE) National Oceanographic Data Centers (NODCs)
Biological data
Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)
United States Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS)
parallel ERDDAP-NETCDF and Geoserver-WMS services
OTN’s PostgreSQL based data system was recently accepted by IOOS POST-NANOOS Project as data management template for US Animal Acoustic Telemetry (AAT) Data
IOOS/NANOOS
Courtesy: Emilio Mayorga, UWash

9. Current status … Ongoing Challenges: ~53.5 million records 52 species
obtaining metadata and data from authoritative sources
securing metadata before instrument data are dispersed
securing metadata and data before major announcements and new funding allocations
identifying resulting publications
~53.5 million records
52 species
15 ocean regions
164 projects
73 institutions
14 countries
* 4.1 million of these detections are from CFI funded projects

10. THANK YOU Some browsing suggestions: Bob.Branton@dal.ca
Data management …
Supported by: OTN Data Management Team …
THANK YOU
Bob Branton, Marta Mihoff, Brian Jones, Lenore Bajona, Susan Dufault
Some browsing suggestions:
oceantrackingnetwork.org
members.oceantrack.org/data
global.oceantrack.org/docs/2012-otn-annual-report