Publishing biodiversity data directly from GitHub to GBIF by Roderic D. M. Page.
From the post:
Today I managed to publish some data from a GitHub repository directly to GBIF. Within a few minutes (and with Tim Robertson on hand via Skype to debug a few glitches) the data was automatically indexed by GBIF and its maps updated. You can see the data I uploaded here.
In case you don’t know about GBIF (I didn’t):
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international open data infrastructure, funded by governments.
It allows anyone, anywhere to access data about all types of life on Earth, shared across national boundaries via the Internet.
By encouraging and helping institutions to publish data according to common standards, GBIF enables research not possible before, and informs better decisions to conserve and sustainably use the biological resources of the planet.
GBIF operates through a network of nodes, coordinating the biodiversity information facilities of Participant countries and organizations, collaborating with each other and the Secretariat to share skills, experiences and technical capacity.
GBIF’s vision: “A world in which biodiversity information is freely and universally available for science, society and a sustainable future.”
Roderic summarizes his post saying:
what I’m doing here is putting data on GitHub and having GBIF harvest that data directly from GitHub. This means I can edit the data, rebuild the Darwin Core Archive file, push it to GitHub, and GBIF will reindex it and update the data on the GBIF portal.
The process isn’t perfect but unlike disciplines where data sharing is the exception rather than the rule, the biodiversity community is trying to improve its sharing of data.
Every attempt at improvement will not succeed but lessons are learned from every attempt.
Kudos to the biodiversity community for a model that other communities should follow!