Museum collections as research data (October 2019)

1. Foto CC-BY Hannes Grobe, AWI Paleoclimate archive
Museumssamlinger som åpne forskningsdata
10 oktober 2019 for NHMs styremøte, Tøyen, Oslo

2. FIRST, BRIEFLY ABOUT GBIF AND DISSCO
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international
open data infrastructure for biodiversity, funded by governments.
GBIF supports institutions to publish data according to common
standards. GBIF operates through a network of nodes.
The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) is a new
Research Infrastructure (RI) for natural science collections. DiSSCo
provides digital unification of all European natural science collections
under common curation and access policies and practices.

3. WHY APPROACH OPEN SCIENCE IN MUSEUMS?

4. WHY APPROACH OPEN SCIENCE IN MUSEUMS?
v We are in the middle of an ongoing paradigm
shift in scientific practice (and impact metrics).
v The open science wave is moving fast!
v Natural History Museums will need to develop
different approaches, than they needed in the
past – to remain relevant.
v Society is quickly gaining Big Data maturity
and will expect new services from museum
collections.

5. (1) Regjeringen har vedtatt at
offentlig sektor skal digitalisere
Norway to follow the ambition of EU on full open
access to publicly funded research by 2020

6. The total number of
specimens in natural history
collecPons worldwide is
esPmated to 1.2 to 3 billion.
(Ariño 2010; Duckworth et al. 1993)
GBIF publishes 1,3 billion records
– including 165 million specimens
5% to 10% coverage?
Photo: Botany Collection, Algae, Smithsonian National
Museum of Natural History Museum, by Chip Clark.

7. ANDEL DIGITALISERT UIO NHM OSLO (47,2%)

8. STATUS FOR SAMLINGENE VED UIO NHM
Naturhistorisk museum i Oslo 2018 Prosent
Antall objekter 5 716 452 100%
Antall digitaliserte objekter 2 697 529 47%
Antall avfotograferte objekter 1 081 321 19%
Antall objekter tilgjengelige på web 1 366 962 24%

11. h`p://purl.org/nhmuio/id/41d9cbb4-4590-4265-8079-ca44d46d27c3
(machine friendly)
Catalog number: O-L-000014
(human friendly)

12. OPEN SCIENCE
OpenMuseumSamples
OpenData
GBIF DiSSCo

13. WHAT IS OPEN SCIENCE?
Open science is transparent and accessible
knowledge that is shared and developed through
collaborative networks
cf. Wikipedia; Vincente-Saez et al. 2018
Vicente-Saez, R; MarPnez-Fuentes, C (2018) Open Science now: A systemaPc literature review for an integrated definiPon. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.12.043

14. WHAT IS OPEN SCIENCE?
“Open science is the movement to make scientific
research (including publications, data, physical samples,
and software) and its dissemination accessible to all
levels of an inquiring society, amateur or professional”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_science
Woelfle M, Olliaro,P, Todd MH (2011) Open science is a research accelerator. doi:10.1038/nchem.1149

15. WHAT IS OPEN SCIENCE?
Open Science can be seen as a continuation of, rather
than a revolution in, practices begun in the 17th century
with the advent of the academic journal
cf. Wikipedia; David 2004
… and arguably also a continuation of the practice of
natural history collections
David, PA (2004) Understanding the emergence of 'open science' institutions: Functionalist economics in historical context. doi:10.1093/icc/dth023

16. Open Access (OA): Research results (often
meaning research articles) distributed online
and free of costs or other barriers.
Open Science: Researchers to share their
methods, materials, computer code,
algorithms, and research data.
Open Data: is freely available to everyone to
use and re-publish as they wish, without
restrictions from copyright, patents or other
mechanisms of control.

17. Promotes maximum (re)use of research data
Researchers need to do more than simply post their data on the web for it to be useful
Wilkinson et al. (2016) The FAIR guiding principles for data management and stewardship. doi:10.1038/sdata.2016.18

18. GBIF | CERTIFIED FAIR DATA
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) provides certified
FAIR data sharing for all biological datasets
Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) will
implement FAIR data principles for natural history collections

19. GBIF enables free & open access
to biodiversity data online
We are an international government-initiated and -funded initiative focused on
making biodiversity data available to all and anyone, for scientific research,
conservation and sustainable development

20. Darwin Core
archive
Research
data
portals
GBIF: MULTIPLE-PURPOSE DATA PUBLISHING SERVICES
portal
Bio-Collections
& datasets
Norwegian Red List
EU Directive
reporting
GBIF BiReMe
(proposed)

21. 59
1348188462
BYTHENUMBERS
8th October 2019
46869
Species occurrence records Datasets
152039
Publishers
Organizational
Participants
Country
Participants
121.6billion 3941
Average records downloaded per month (2018) Peer-review papers citing data usage

22. DATA PUBLISHED THROUGH GBIF.ORG

23. DATA TYPES PUBLISHED IN GBIF
81,8% Observation data
(citizen science)
12,3%
specimens
(ciPzen science)
(museum specimens)
(biobank/DNA samples)
(museum specimens)

24. Map updated 10th March 2019
M
ostdataarefrom
morerecentdates

25. TOTAL OCCURRENCE RECORDS BY COUNTRY
STATUS PER 8TH OCTOBER 2019
Rank Country Occurrences
1 United States 487 732 124
2 United Kingdom 95 638 065
3 Sweden 88 906 824
4 Australia 82 091 852
5 France 65 667 840
6 Canada 64 864 400
7 Netherlands 57 985 789
8 Germany 45 856 166
9 Belgium 39 065 843
10 Spain 37 409 515
11 Denmark 31 596 213
12 Norway 31 341 681
13 Finland 28 659 058

27. DATA CITATION AS A NEW CURRENCY OF SCIENCE
● Peer-reviewed scholarly papers in high impact journals
maintain considerable weight for impact metrics.
● A movement is under way to build similar status for open
data, open metadata, open material samples, and other open
scientific research products…

28. DATA CITATION PRINCIPLES
1. Data to be legitimate citable products of research.
2. Data citations giving scholarly credit and attribution.
3. In scholarly literature, whenever claims are based on data, data should always
be cited.
4. Persistent method for identification of data, that is machine actionable, globally
unique, universal.
5. Data citation facilitate access to data or at least to metadata.
6. Unique identifiers that persist even beyond the lifespan of the data.
7. Data citation identify and access the specific data that support verification of
the claim (provenance, time-slice, version).
8. Flexible, but attention to interoperability of practices across communities.
Data Citation Synthesis Group: Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles. Martone M. (ed.) San Diego CA: FORCE11; 2014

29. OPEN RESEARCH DATA POLICIES
● Scientific journals start to provide guidelines for availability of
research data to accompany published research papers.
● GBIF is here recommended as a data repository for biology.
● Museum collections could perhaps start to provide a similar
function for open availability to biological material samples…
http://www.springernature.com/gp/group/data-policy/policy-types

30. More than 700 – about 2 papers a day
Peer-reviewed publications using GBIF-mediated data

31. Total # of peer-reviewed papers by country
1 United States 296
2 United Kingdom 125
3 Germany 100
4 Brazil 99
5 China 97
6 Spain 87
7 Australia 82
8 France 70
9 Canada 64
10 Mexico 64
13 Denmark 46
19 Sweden 33
… Norway 27
PEER-REVIEWED USES BY COUNTRY AND REGION
STATUS FOR 2019 (JAN-SEP)

32. RESEARCH USE OF GBIF-MEDIATED DATA
Number of papers citing use of GBIF as data source, per country of at least one author

33. DATA CLEANING SERVICES
verbatimEventDate:
18 Mayo 2016
year: 2016
month: 5
day: 18
eventDate: 2016-05-18
startDayOfYear: 139
endDayOfYear: 139
DwC-ArchiveSource
Data
cleaning

35. REPRODUCIBILITY CRISIS
Scientific irreproducibility
the inability to repeat others'
experiments and reach the
same conclusion (Nature 2016)
Baker (2016) 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature doi:10.1038/533452a

36. "Scientific
irreproducibility — the
inability to repeat others'
experiments and reach
the same conclusion —
is a growing concern”.
Baker (2016) Nature
doi:10.1038/533452a
Open Science solution: researchers to
share their methods, data, computer code
and results in central data repositories.
Note that we also need herbarium specimen
and bio-repositories (eg. museums).

37. WILL ANYBODY
TRUST CLOSED
SCIENCE AGAIN?
Recent studies indicates that p-hacking [1] is a significant
problem – sometimes even without the scientist even being
aware of doing so (Ioannidis 2005; Head et al. 2015)
[1] p-hacking, (data dredging, data fishing, …) occurs when researchers collect or select data or statistical analyses
until nonsignificant results become significant.
Pre-registered (open) data & material samples provides a good insurance
against suspicion of both data dredging (and plain data falsification).
Ioannidis (2005) Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLoS Med. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124.
Head et al. (2015) The Extent and Consequences of P-Hacking in Science. PLoS Biol. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002106

38. Open science provides possibilities for new & curiosity-driven research
Open science
TradiPonal science
Modern museums

39. ARKIVERING AV FORSKNINGSDATA (GBIF) OG
MATERIALPRØVER (BIOBANK, DISSCO)
Åpen arkivering og deling av data og fysiske materialprøver sikrer
at forskningsresultater er reproduserbare.
Profesjonell kuratering av data og materialprøver sparer
forskningstid fordi forskeren selv, samarbeidspartnere og
andre finner, forstår, og får tilgang til data og prøver.
Deling av data og materialprøver gir bredere spredning og
påvirkningskraft for forskningsresultater.
Tilrettelegging for gjenbruk av forskningsdata og materialprøver
forsterker åpen og nyskjerrighets-dreven forskning og kan
lede til uventede forsknings-gjennombrudd!

40. GBIF LIVING ATLAS COMMUNITY

41. BIOATLAS SWEDEN

43. Museumssamlinger som
åpne forskningsdata
10 oktober 2019, for NHMs styremøte, Tøyen, Oslo