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About the Biodata Management Guide

Last updated 22 19 August 2013 by Dan Randow. Licensed under CC BY 3.0. with financial assistance from the Terrestrial and Freshwater Biodiversity Information System (TFBIS) Programme (Project 263: Biodata Management Framework: Phase Two), and support from Horizons Regional Council and Dataversity.

This document describes who and what the Guide is for and explains how to use it.

Why a Biodata Management Guide is Needed

Efforts to manage biosecurity and protect biodiversity depend on data about species and ecosystems. Data is required for policy, planning and management within organisations. And it is required for coordinating activities between organisations.

Biodiversity and biosecurity data is complex and messy. There are many different aspects of managing it effectively to consider. When planning improvements in a specific area, it is hard to know what to focus on. When assessing and planning system-wide improvements, it is hard to know where to start. It is hard to know where to invest in improving systems to get the maximum benefit in terms of better data to support biodiversity and biosecurity management.

Purpose of the Guide

This Guide makes it easy to assess and improve biodata management processes and systems, in order to increase the return on investments in those systems.

Use of this Guide will also improve the potential for data-sharing between organisations, by promoting and facilitating the adoption of standards and common approaches.

Scope of the Guide

The Guide relates to the practices that are used to manage biodata, as well as the technology that is used. It is designed to be used on systems of any scale, using any type of technology, that manage the data that is:

• about any species – including indigenous and pest species,
• about any ecosystems – including all habitats for indigenous species,
• about any management of biodiversity – including protection, restoration and community-engagement activities, and the policies, programmes, projects, priorities and site-designations within which activities are carried out,
• collected by any survey method – including casual observations, community monitoring, rigorous surveys and even uncertain methods as may be the case with legacy data (the use of recognised survey methods is recommended, of course),
• of any quality – (systems should ensure that data quality is not degraded, and that data of low reliability is not visible to people who are not qualified to interpret it), and
• for any purpose – including planning, management, operations, education and community engagement.

Intended Users of the Guide

This Tool is designed to be used:

• by all Biodata Managers – whether part-time or full-time, and whether specialist data mangers or not,
• in all Organisations – of all sizes, including government, science providers, museums, universities, NGOs and private sector.

How to Use the Guide

Biodata Managers can use this Guide to:

• Assess the current state of biodata systems,
• Set goals for improvements to biodata systems,
• Plan specific steps to improve biodata systems, and
• Measure progress with improvements to biodata systems, and the return on investments in those improvements .  

Other potential uses include the following.

• Biodiversity and biosecurity managers could use this Tool to evaluate biodata systems prior to acquisition,  
• Biodata s ystem providers could use this Tool to verify the maturity of their system.  
• A catalogue of biodata systems could rate systems using this Tool, to make it easy for an organisation to find a system to meet its needs.
• This Tool could also be used to assess the usefulness of datasets held internally or externally. It could be developed into a validated tool that can be used as part of the contractual basis for biodata system development and science delivery projects.

Key Concepts Used in this Guide

This Guide defines five maturity levels of biodata management.

• Fragmented – Ad hoc and inconsistent.
• Improvised – Some planned management.
• Managed – Consistent management.
• Automated – Tools ensure consistent management.
• Integrated – Ongoing improvement is part of all systems.

This Guide defines five biodata management activities for which maturity can be assessed.

• Capture – Record data in the field.
• Ingest – Introduce data into primary repository.
• Store – Retain data for the long term.
• Share – Make data available to people and systems.
• Analyse – Combine, compare and summarise data.

This Guide defines five factors that determine the maturity of biodata management:

• Processes – The maintenance and adoption of standard procedures for managing data.
• Tools – The technical tools that are used to manage data.
• Formats – The form in which the data is recorded.
• Licensing – Explicit statement of permitted uses of the data.
• Reliability – Ensuring that the user knows how reliable the data is.
• Standards – The terms that are chosen to describe the data.