International/Interagency Collaboration –International/Interagency Collaboration –Information Technology for Environmental InformationInformation Technology for Environmental Information

and Environmental Data Exchange Networkand Environmental Data Exchange Network

Thomas F. Lahr, Deputy Director, BIO, USGSThomas F. Lahr, Deputy Director, BIO, USGSBonnie C. Carroll, Sr. ConsultantBonnie C. Carroll, Sr. Consultant

April 25-26, 2002April 25-26, 2002

Copenhagen, DenmarkCopenhagen, 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

USGSBishop Museum, HeritageState/Federal AgenciesCommunity organizations

Invasive Species:Quick Response capabilitiesTrainingModeling of threatsHazardsGAP Analysis

Pacific Basin Information Node

Key Partners:

Topics:

Northeast Urban Ecology IN

Columbia Univ. USGS State/Federal AgenciesCommunity organizations

Socio-economic dataInternational biodiversity data DatabasesInteractive mapping applications

Key Partners:

Topics:

NBII/NABIN/IABIN/GBIF

GLOBAL

REGIONAL

NATIONAL

LOCAL

Growing Beyond National BordersGrowing Beyond National Borders

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)

Clearinghouse Mechanism (CHM)

Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN)

North American Biodiversity Information Network (NABIN)

NBII (U.S.) * CBIN (Canada) * REMOB(Mex) * ERIN (Aus)

NBII Regional Nodes

TNC State Heritage*GAP State Information

County Park Information

Technology/Terminology Future Initiatives

http://www.nbii.gov/search/biobot

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)

What is ITIS?What is ITIS?

Partnership – federal partnership with state, private, academic, international cooperators

Evolving online standard taxonomic reference tool— dynamic standardized database of biological names &

related data (ca. 400,000 names of importance to N. America)

— scientifically credible Provides one-stop shopping for taxonomic information Covers all life forms

— accepted scientific names in standard classification, synonyms, common names

— author, date— reference source (bibliographic, database)— distribution of species

http://www.itis.usda.gov

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 areao Discussion Areaso Document Sharingo Calendar o Action Item/Task List

• Collaboration Server:o Workflow, 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