Atlas of Living Australia

Atlas of Living Australia

Vanessa [email protected] Colorado Island,Panama, 17-20 January 2012

The Atlas is funded by the Australian Government under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategyand further supported by the Super Science Initiative of the Education Investment Fund

mailto:[email protected]

Sharing biodiversity knowledge to shape our future www.ala.org.au

ALA – brief history

• Australian Government funding– NCRIS 2006-2012: $8.2M– EIF Super Science 2009-2013: $30.0M– ALA partner in-kind contributions: $26.5M

• Timeline– 2006/2007 – NCRIS applications– 2007-06 – NCRIS funds awarded– 2007-12 – Project start – 2008-11 – ALA User Needs Analysis delivered– 2009-11 – EIF Super Science funds awarded– 2010-10 – Launch of ALA web site– 2010-2012 – Additional features and content


ALA – goals

• Mission– To develop an authoritative, freely accessible, distributed

and federated biodiversity data management system• Integrated picture of Australia’s biodiversity

– Plants, animals and microorganisms– Marine and terrestrial– Native and non-native

• Information and tools to support:– Species identification– Taxonomy and collection management– Biosecurity – Conservation and land-use management– Ecological and agricultural research– Education


ALA – current status

• Data providers– 338 listed, 200 contributing

• Data– Over 29 million occurrence records– Images and profile information (170,000 species

pages)– Spatial data for analysis (over 250 layers)

• Community projects– Citizen science toolkit– Volunteers portal

• Partnerships– Australian partners– International including BHL, EOL, Morphbank,


ALA – organisational detail

• Core team with CSIRO in Canberra– Director: Donald Hobern (to be replaced)– Programme Manager: Peter Doherty– Communications Manager: Lynne Sealie– c. 30 business analysts, project managers, developers,

data administrators• c. 20 additional staff elsewhere in Australia• Partners

• Government: – CSIRO – lead agent– Department of the Environment,

Water, Heritage and the Arts– Department of Agriculture, Fisheries

and Forestry• Universities:– Southern Cross University– University of Adelaide

• State museums:– Australian Museum– Museum and Art Gallery of the

Northern Territory– Museum Victoria– Queensland Museum– South Australian Museum– Tasmanian Museum and Art

Gallery– Western Australian Museum

• Representative bodies: – Council of Heads of Australasian

Herbaria– Council of Heads of Australian

Faunal Collections– Council of Heads of Australian

Entomological Collections– Council of Heads of Australian

Collections of Microorganisms– Council of Australasian Museum

Directors


ALA – challenges

• Funding– Existing funds come to an end in June 2012 or June 2013– No additional funding identified at present– AU research infrastructure roadmap: possible funds 2013-?

• Licensing and open access – Many resources developed for print– No clear ownership to approve web use

• Aggregating Data– Variable formats for legacy data– New data needs to be collected using standard models

• Data quality– Need to automate detection of any issues possible– Need mechanisms to crowd-source authoritative corrections


ALA – opportunities

• Increasing engagement with natural resource managers, environment agencies, etc.

• Interest from AU science curriculum• Combination of the volume of data with the tools

and spatial layers that provides the benefit• Access to information• Access to tools• Improve quality at source and ability to interchange

– Embed standards into operations • Connect individuals, groups, researchers,

government, experts and amateurs

The Atlas is funded by the Australian Government under the National Collaborative Research

Infrastructure Strategyand further supported by the Super Science Initiative of the Education Investment Fund

The Atlas of Living Australia Participants

The Council of Heads of Australian Faunal Collections (CHAFC)

The Council of Heads of Australian Entomological Collections (CHAEC)

The Council of Heads of Australasian Collections of Microorganisms (CHACM)

The Council of Australasian Museum Directors (CAMD)

Technology

Atlas of Living Australia