Ecosystem Approach Community of Practice: EA-CoP stakeholder group

Template for description of each instance of EA-CoPCommunity of Practice.

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative
• Positioning of iMarine
• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users
  • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users
• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Notes:

The terminology "First range users / second range users / third range users" refers to cascading levels of involvement, from users directly interacting with iMarine Board (the first range users) towards end-users eventually benefiting from the iMarine services (second or third range users).

The Type of actors which are potentially concerned as EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. are listed in the paragraphs under Communication messages

Instances of the EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. - as of March 2013

Users of transversal facilities

Code lists manager / mapper

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative

1. The Code List Manager manages the codes, their description and definition in their domain (hierarchy and versions), and make them available for sharing to the community;
2. The Code List Mapper discovers and maintains relationships (Mapping) between code lists and the codes they contain.

These 2 distinct VREVirtual Research Environment.'s operate in sequence; The Code List Mapper will be developed when a code list manager is completed.

• Positioning of iMarine

The Code List Manager is partly available in the iMarine infrastructure, and will partly be a collaboration with the VocBench project in the development of the Cotrix Code list management application.

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)

Code list Manager first range users are Code Lists producers that need to maintain their own code lists and code list mapping (for their own needs or to fulfil a mandate) and share them within their institutions and/or to a community. These users are International Organizations such as FAO producing authoritative code lists (CWP code lists such as Geartype and vesseltype as part of CWP mandate or ASFIS, a worldwide reference on Aquatic Species of interest for Fisheries), Regional organizations (Regional fisheries Bodies like ICCAT, IOTC, GFCM etc, Regional Economic Institutions which compile and produce fisheries statistics like UEMOA, ECA, SADC, etc), national institutions (Ministry of Fisheries, Fisheries research Institute), any structure dealing with fisheries statistical data or data in general need to produce their own code lists / Code list Mapping for their own data collection and processing need.

Second range of users are Code Lists consumers: they are producing statistical data and need authoritative code lists to report these data to regional or international organizations such as EuroSTAT, FAO using these organizations code lists. They need to be kept updated on the evolution of the code lists. These second range of users are the same as first range users.

FLOD

• Name of the initiative: Fisheries Linked Open Data
• Objective of the initiative: (i) Create a core dataset in Linked Data format made of codes from referential code lists for statistical reports and data dissemination (e.g. yearbooks, web portals). (ii) Enrich the core connection with more links among the coded entities that belongs to the domain of Species, Vessel Type, Gear Type, Water Area, Land Area, Exclusive Economic Zone etc. (iii) Support document retrieval applications, and mash-up applications enabled by the network of connections, and semantic annotation of the documents.
• Positioning of iMarine

iMarine will facilitate the creation of the network of entities trough dissemination services based on the gCube infrastructure.

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users

The first range of users of FLOD are marine scientist or statisticians involved in reporting activity or content editing. The second range of users are content managers of web portals. The third range of users are decision makers involved in assessment of marine resources at global levels.

• • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users

We expect that the first range users is set in the order of thousands, the second range is in the order of hundreds, and the third range is in the orders of tens.

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

The CoPCommunity of Practice. that decide to be part of the Fisheries Linked Open Data network will/can be responsible of the licensing, accessibility, and publishing of their data, with respect to the consumers applications.

Users of BC1 related VREs/Services

ICIS

The Integrated Capture Information System (ICIS) allows for the import, validation, modification and publishing of time series. It reads csv and SDMX files, and can produce maps, graphs, and SDMX time series.

The use case is described here: http://wiki.i-marine.eu/index.php/Ecosystem_Approach_Community_of_Practice:_ICIS

A specialized case of managing time-series is the Spatial RE-Allocation of Data (SPREAD)

The use case is described here: http://wiki.i-marine.eu/index.php/Ecosystem_Approach_Community_of_Practice:_SPREAD

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)

• Type of First range users / second range users / third range users

• Number of First range users / second range users / third range users

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Tuna Atlas (FAO)

• Objective of the initiative

Tuna Atlas is the FAO world atlas of tuna captures presented as a time series of maps with 5 degree cells resolution and quaarterly time resolution, the other dimentions being species/fisehries/gear. This Atlas is regularly maintained by FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture department which collates and harmonize relevant catch data sources from five Tuna RFMOs (CCSBT, IATTC, ICCAT, IOTC, WCPFC)

• Positioning of iMarine

The Tuna Atlas (TA) is a sub-component of ICIS. ICIS is expected to provide the workflow functionality which will facilitate the regular maintenance of the data set, and progressively foster participation and data sharing by tuna RFMOs.

Data are collected and centralized in FAO from Regional Fisheries Bodies (RFB) published data with different formats. After importation in ICIS VREVirtual Research Environment., statistics are harmonized and curated to standardize all RFB’s statistical time series to the same TA statistical structure (5° square/species/fisheries/gear) and the same reference data (Same 5° square, same species list, same gear type list and same fisheries definition). A description of ICIS workflow is available here [add the link to the document written in June]. This use case also covers tuna global captures (including billfishes) as both processes are very similar (only output changes: tuna and billfishes are published by stock/gear/species)

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)

Fishery statisticians are first range users: - The Tuna Atlas CoPCommunity of Practice. aims primarily the TA statisticians within the FAO Fisheries department. One person is actually in charge of these statistics.

- TA CoPCommunity of Practice. could be extended in a second phase to Tuna RFMOs statisticians preparing the tuna capture statistics in order to improve quality (same reference data shared) and format of publishing tuna captures statistics. Around 5 fishery statisticians should be involved.

- Once functional, it is meant to be extended to global and regional capture statisticians (ie FAO and RFBs) who aim at building the integrated catch information system as recommended by CWP. 20-30 fishery statisticians should be involved.

- In a medium term, it could then extend to partially handle the FAO global catch and/or aquaculture statistics collation process; partially because the formats of national global capture statistics are so heterogeneous that centralization process is currently highly manual.

Scientists and policy makers, traditional users of the Global and Regional statistics, are second and third range users, consuming the shared time series products on the iMarine infrastructure or the published products on FAO or RFBs websites.

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

TBD

SPREAD (FAO)

• Name of the initiative: Spatial REAllocation of catch Data (SPREAD), initially funded by the FAO Trust fund "Promotion of sustainable fisheries: support for strengthening functions of and coordination among RFBs/RFMOs" (GCP/INT/069/JPN) and currently supported by i-Marine.

• Objective: SPREAD will be a set of tools to transform statistical time series based on spatial disaggregation / re-allocation techniques. SPREAD will primarily target fishery catch datasets in order to estimate catch amounts in High-Seas vs. Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), as FAO's response to UNGA's request to “revise its global fisheries statistics database to provide information for the stocks to which the Agreement applies, as well as to high seas discrete stocks on the basis of where the catch was taken” (UN, 2006).

• Positioning of iMarine: iMarine aims at providing tools to support SPREAD. Such tools will be integrated as a sub-component of the Integrated Capture Information System (ICIS). More specifically:
  • the first tool will enable simple-area weighted reallocation, using OGC standards (SFA,GML), related services (WFSWeb Feature Service,WPS) and the FAO Intersection Engine web-service as source of GIS layers for calculations.
  • Support for more advanced algorithms (probability-based/stochastic allocations) could be later envisaged, through access to marine species distributions (e.g. FAO aquatic distribution maps, AquaMaps), or to other relevant marine/fishery geo-referenced data.
  • SPREAD outputs can be published (for dissemination through the FAO website) as a collection of individual species catch reports, including statistical tables and maps; or aggregated and published as iMarine SMDX repository; or downloaded for further dissemination through FAO's statistical dissemination tools.

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (within project time line)

The first range users are fishery statisticians within FAO/FIPS, as well as the FAO Information Systems specialists involved in the SPREAD initiative. About 4-5 persons are primarily concerned. The second range users are the broad range of usual clients of the FAO global catch statistics, who will access the SPREAD outputs published through the FAO website, as a collection of individual reports of catch tables and associated maps, or as statistical database product disseminated through various channels (FishSTatJ, SDMX, Query panel)

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (potential expansion)

A reallocation capacity based on spatial patterns is a need which has been recurrently observed. Within FAO, various groups (ESS, NR, AGP) have described similar data processing needs.

Fisheries operational data

A first draft of a operational data management environment is made available to the Board members.

It can be accessed through the BSCW.

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)

• Type of First range users / second range users / third range users

• Number of First range users / second range users / third range users

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

VTI2 (NEAFC)

The Vessel Transmitted Information system (VTI) is a specialization of ICIS. It was developed to study the feasibility of an environment where confidential data can be managed.

The main input of the VREVirtual Research Environment. are confidential vessel position records. These are aggregated to anonymous fishing activity intensity per Month per 5*5 degrees. These products can be downloaded or vizualized as maps or tabular date.

The VREVirtual Research Environment. can be accessed (after obtaining credentials) through the iMarine portal

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)

The VTI2 project aims at a whole workflow including access to VMS data under confidentiality requirements to few persons of the NEAFC Secretariat acting as VMS data manager, and publishing of aggregated effort reports in a shared NEAFC-ICES VREVirtual Research Environment. for exploitation by the few ICES scientists involved in assessment of NEAFC fisheries

• Type of First range users / second range users / third range users

First range users: VMS data manager, scientists involved in effort assessment, using Cost methodologies and tools Second range users: scientists of fisheries assessment working groups who will integrate the outputs in broader assessment context and formulate scientific advice Third range users: policy makers using scientific advice as basis for management and policy making

• Number of First range users / second range users / third range users

First range users: 2 NEAFC VMS data managers at the end of the project, 1 ICES Data technician, 1 ICES scientist in Secretariat, 3 ICES Scientists from the Working Group on Deepwater Ecology (WGDEC)

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

NEAFC sits in the iMArine Board and Advisory Council. ACOM (advisory committee) should be involved as a scientific contact in the governance process, as they are the direct client contact to NEAFC.

IRD - FishFrame Tuna distant fisheries database

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative
• Positioning of iMarine
• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users
  • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users
• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Notes:

The terminology "First range users / second range users / third range users" refers to cascading levels of involvement, from users directly interacting with iMarine Board (the first range users) towards end-users eventually benefiting from the iMarine services (second or third range users).

The Type of actors which are potentially concerned as EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. are listed in the paragraphs under Communication messages

Users of BC2 related VREs/Services

Aquamaps

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative
• Positioning of iMarine
• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users
  • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users
• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Notes:

The terminology "First range users / second range users / third range users" refers to cascading levels of involvement, from users directly interacting with iMarine Board (the first range users) towards end-users eventually benefiting from the iMarine services (second or third range users).

The Type of actors which are potentially concerned as EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. are listed in the paragraphs under Communication messages

ecological niche modelling

• Objective of the initiative: The requirements for the ecological niche modeling are described in the requirements area.

http://wiki.i-marine.eu/index.php/Ecosystem_Approach_Community_of_Practice:_SpeciesModeller

• Positioning of iMarine:

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project):

The user community of the gCube Open modeller implementation (ie a cloud implementation) should be primarily sought among the current community of Open Modeller.

• Type of First range users / second range users / third range users

• Number of First range users / second range users / third range users

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Species names reconciliation

There are three foreseen Products x CoPCommunity of Practice.

• Objective of the initiative:

Nicolas to complete story of 500.000 missing names in CoL

• Positioning of iMarine: A first service has been developed in collaboration with University of Cardiff and CRIA as part of the EUBrazil OpenBio project. The Taxon name reconciliation algorythm which has been integrated was developed by Un. of Cardiff to serve the CoL. The species name reconciliation builds on the capabilities in the e-infrastructure for the consumption and management of taxonomic information. It can read and produce data in Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) format.

A description of a planned VREVirtual Research Environment. to support the EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. woring in this area is available here:

http://wiki.i-marine.eu/index.php/Ecosystem_Approach_Community_of_Practice:_TaxonReconciliation

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project):

Question: Is the primary user of this first service the Catalog of Life ? who else?

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Species occurrence reconciliation

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative
• Positioning of iMarine
• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users
  • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users
• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Notes:

The terminology "First range users / second range users / third range users" refers to cascading levels of involvement, from users directly interacting with iMarine Board (the first range users) towards end-users eventually benefiting from the iMarine services (second or third range users).

The Type of actors which are potentially concerned as EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. are listed in the paragraphs under Communication messages

VME-Database (FAO)

• Name of the initiative: Global Database for Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs), funded by the FAO Trust fund "BDEMV" (GCP/GLO/309/FRA).

• Objective of the initiative: provide an avenue to distribute information and raise awareness on recognized VMEs to fishery policy makers, managers, scientists and the public at large. The database will facilitate communication among RFMO/As and States, building partnerships and the creation of a network among the community of users, information contributors and those working on the protection of VMEs in the high seas.

• Positioning of iMarine: The iMarine e-infrastructure provides to data owners, under a controlled access, a scientific collaborative space through Virtual Research EnvironmentA ''system'' with the following distinguishing features: ''(i)'' it is a Web-based working environment; ''(ii)'' it is tailored to serve the needs of a Community of Practice; ''(iii)'' it is expected to provide a community of practice with the whole array of commodities needed to accomplish the community’s goal(s); ''(iv)'' it is open and flexible with respect to the overall service offering and lifetime; and ''(v)'' it promotes fine-grained controlled sharing of both intermediate and final research results by guaranteeing ownership, provenance, and attribution. (VREVirtual Research Environment.) for enhancing their capacity to input, share, and analyse a broad range of ecological, environmental and fisheries data used as proxi-indicators of VME identification criteria. As output of this input-sharing-analysis process, iMarine also allows to elaborate individual VME reports including their spatial definition and to publish them.

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)

Three main user groups:

• Fishery policy makers and managers, and their data managers - 6 RFMOs are primarily concerned (CCAMLR, GFCM, NAFO, NEAFC, SEAFO, SIOFA, SPRFMO)
• Scientists - from the above RFMOs having a scientific mandate, from ICES, and from national research institutes (e.g. DFO Canada, CSIRO Australia, NMFS USA, IFREMER France, IEO Spain, ...)
• Fishing industry representatives, both data managers and science persons - few groups to start with (e.g. SIODFA, ,,,)

The first range users are [geospatial] data managers of FAO, and other international or national research agencies (e.g. ICES, CSIRO) who will provide access to relevant environmental and geospatial databases, including the published FAO VME database. About 5 users can be foreseen by the end of the iMarine project.

The second range users are i) data managers involved in RFMOs VME processes or working for the deep sea fishing industry who will upload VME relevant fisheries observations (e.g. "encounters"), and ii) scientists in fisheries and deep seas ecology who will analyse the available information with the endeavour to identify VME areas. About 5 data managers, and 5 scientists can be foreseen by the end of the project. A successful uptake would raise prospect of a growth of this community up to 10-20 data managers and 30 - 50 scientists in the following years, through activities supported by FAO's ABNJ Deep Seas project.

The outputs of the work of the above described direct users will impact on i) policy makers and fishery managers of concerned RFMOs, and of FAO's Member States (where FAO serves its Member States in areas where there is no RFMO), whose capacity to identify VMEs and define management rules will be enhanced; and ii) on the users of the public VME-database including the general public.

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Environmental service (IRD community)

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative
• Positioning of iMarine
• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users
  • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users
• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Environmental service (GeoBon community)

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative
• Positioning of iMarine
• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users
  • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users
• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Species assessments in data poor context (EcoKnows community)

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative
• Positioning of iMarine
• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users
  • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users
• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Users of BC3 related VREs/Services

Smartfish (FAO)

• Name of the initiative: SWIOFC's Fisheries Regional Information System (F-RIS), funded by the Smartfish project in partnership with SWIOFP and iMarine.

• Objective of the initiative: The F-RIS will provide a broad range of information in support to EAF oriented decision making in fisheries in the South West Indian Ocean region. RFIS will primarily build on existing complementary information systems (First on StatBase, WIOFish, FIRMS and it could be extended to national statistical systems).

• Positioning of iMarine: iMarine aims at providing tools to support F-RIS. iMarine will enable a seamless integration and harmonization of the existing systems within RFIS. More specifically:

- the first level of harmonization will rely on OpenSearch or Xsearch services enhanced with FLOD knowledgebase;

- a more advanced level of harmonization could be later envisaged through direct access to database structures.

SmartFish can also benefit from the iMarine e-infrastructure capabilities of sustainably hosting the F-RIS application.

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)

The first range users are information system specialists and data managers supporting the existing systems. About 8 persons are primarily concerned (2 per target system).

The second range users are the national data managers in the region, which are involved in feeding the existing systems. About 20 persons are concerned (about 2 per country)

The third range are users of the existing systems, ie scientists and regional fisheries policy makers.

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Species fact sheets (IRD/Ecoscope)

• Name of the initiative
• Objective of the initiative
• Positioning of iMarine
• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)
  • Type of First range users / second range users / third range users
  • Number of First range users / second range users / third range users
• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process

Notes:

The terminology "First range users / second range users / third range users" refers to cascading levels of involvement, from users directly interacting with iMarine Board (the first range users) towards end-users eventually benefiting from the iMarine services (second or third range users).

The Type of actors which are potentially concerned as EA-CoPCommunity of Practice. are listed in the paragraphs under Communication messages

Species fact sheets (FAO/FishFinder)

• Objective of the initiative

Problem: The existing FAO Species Fact Sheets require an update; new content is available, existing content needs to be revised, and the possibility to expose the information in new and easily accesible formats needs to be considered. The goal of this FishFinder initiative is to produce species fact-sheets with authors distributed in various locations, as part of a FAO project agreement in South America.

• Positioning of iMarine

iMarine will deliver a VREVirtual Research Environment. building heavily on the FCPPS capacity, adding a standalone reporting component so to cater for the limitations of users in developing countries. The FishFinderVRE is established to elaborate Species Fact Sheets with required authoring, review and approval interactive workflow process.

The Species Fact Sheets VREVirtual Research Environment. would offer a Work-Flow driven solution for the collection, collation and review of species fact sheets. A fact sheet manager would initiate a document work flow by filling a template with base information, and then invite authors to contribute content to specific part of the fact sheets, which can then be reviewed before they are published as FiMES compliant XML. The fact sheets manager has options to add annotations, search boxes and other authoring help to the editor. It also allows to fill / view their metadata, and select data for download and-or display in a Stand-alone version of the VREVirtual Research Environment., for further content authoring, then upload.

The iMarine software offers a secure and private environment for data. There is no identified need in this scenario to develop solutions to manage confidential info at data / dataset / organizational beyond the current offer.

• Characteristics of the CoPCommunity of Practice. (target at the end of iMarine project)

The explicit purpose is to enable some 50 taxonomist and/or fishery biologists authors to prepare hundreds of species fact sheets. The tools will be operated by one VREVirtual Research Environment. manager in FAO (a FishFinder staff)

• Type of First range users / second range users / third range users

In the short term, the expectation is that there will be 1-5 data managers, 5 - 20 editors operating to produce several hundred species fact sheets. There will be published in the FAO website with thousands of viewers.

The proposed solution can be easily re-used in another fact-sheet scenarios, e.g. for specific users groups (sharks, corals/reefs, VME's, DIAS) where content collection can benefit from a template, and work-flow support is needed.

• Number of First range users / second range users / third range users

• Involvement of the CoPCommunity of Practice. in the Governance process