ABI Development: Collaborative Research: VertNet, a New Model for Biodiversity Networks

ABI 开发：协作研究：VertNet，生物多样性网络的新模型

• 批准号: 1062148
• 负责人: J. Patrick Kociolek
• 金额: $ 30.91万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-05-01 至 2015-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1062148&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ABI; Development; Collaborative; Research; VertNet

This collaborative award is made to implement an innovative model for biodiversity networks and data sharing called VertNet (http://vertnet.org). Biodiversity is in a crisis caused by multiple human impacts on the environment, and documentation of spatial and temporal biodiversity changes is immediately and urgently needed in order to address this crisis. The community of vertebrate natural history collections has begun to meet this need by establishing social and technological infrastructures that provide open access to data describing planetary occurrences of biological specimens. Taxon-specific data sharing initiatives such as MaNIS, ORNIS, HerpNET and FishNet 2 currently provide, in total, over 85 million records documenting where vertebrates occur. Together these networks include 171 collections from 12 countries, with an additional 52 collections (20 countries) committed to participation. Already, they are accessed at a rate of nearly 2.5 million records per week. Participation in each of these networks has far exceeded expectations, resulting in growing issues of scalability, performance, sustainability, and ability to incorporate new members. VertNet will solve these impediments by moving to a cloud computing solution in which providers and users synchronize changes to a cloud-based network of vertebrate biodiversity data. Cloud computing is a pay-per-use model utilizing internet-based, third party computing resources that are fast and dynamically scalable. The new VertNet model removes the requirement and cost to contributors to buy or maintain their own servers while leveraging all of the data integrity and replication services provided by the cloud. Under the new model, contributors will use a web-based administrative interface to create a "provider" in the cloud. Subsequent updates will use the same local application to publish differences (additions, changes, deletions) since initial publishing. Data storage in the cloud will contain the primary data published from all contributors as persistently and uniquely available records. In addition, it will contain summary information about data aggregations, and will incorporate data from other sources such as auxiliary data look-ups, user feedback, and data quality assessments. VertNet will provide open access to data with new capabilities for discovery and visualization, and will integrate with several existing biodiversity and collection management applications. Development of VertNet will transform the use of vertebrate biodiversity data for cross-disciplinary research, conservation, and policy-making.The four predecessor projects (MaNIS, ORNIS, HerpNET, FishNet 2) have built a strong tradition of biodiversity informatics training and community-building. VertNet will continue this tradition, with impacts extending beyond the funded institutions. Specifically, VertNet will engage students from across the United States in two Summer Internships in Biodiversity Informatics and two Workshops in Biodiversity Informatics. In addition, undergraduate students will be offered volunteer apprenticeships through existing programs at UC Berkeley. An additional workshop that involves the broader community will address strategies for long-term sustainability of digitization and data-sharing efforts.

这项合作奖是为了实施一个称为VertNet的生物多样性网络和数据共享的创新模式（vertnet.org）。由于人类对环境的多重影响，生物多样性正处于危机之中，为了应对这一危机，迫切需要立即记录生物多样性的时空变化。脊椎动物自然历史收藏界已开始通过建立社会和技术基础设施来满足这一需求，这些基础设施提供了对描述生物标本行星出现情况的数据的开放访问。MaNIS、ORNIS、HerpNET和FishNet 2等特定分类的数据共享举措目前总共提供了8 500多万条记录，记录了脊椎动物出现的地点。这些网络包括来自12个国家的171个收藏品，另有52个收藏品（20个国家）承诺参与。目前，它们的访问速度已经达到每周近250万条记录。 对这些网络的参与远远超出了预期，导致可扩展性、性能、可持续性和吸收新成员的能力等问题日益严重。VertNet将通过迁移到云计算解决方案来解决这些障碍，在云计算解决方案中，提供商和用户将更改同步到基于云的脊椎动物生物多样性数据网络。云计算是一种按使用付费的模式，利用基于互联网的第三方计算资源，这些资源是快速和动态可扩展的。新的VertNet模型消除了贡献者购买或维护自己的服务器的要求和成本，同时利用云提供的所有数据完整性和复制服务。在新模式下，贡献者将使用基于Web的管理界面在云中创建“提供者”。后续更新将使用相同的本地应用程序发布自初始发布以来的差异（添加、更改、删除）。云中的数据存储将包含所有贡献者发布的主要数据，作为持久和唯一可用的记录。此外，它将包含关于数据汇总的摘要信息，并将纳入来自其他来源的数据，如辅助数据查询、用户反馈和数据质量评估。VertNet将通过新的发现和可视化功能提供对数据的开放访问，并将与几个现有的生物多样性和收集管理应用程序集成。VertNet的开发将改变脊椎动物生物多样性数据在跨学科研究、保护和决策中的使用。四个前身项目（MaNIS、ORNIS、HerpNET、FishNet 2）已经建立了生物多样性信息学培训和社区建设的强大传统。VertNet将继续这一传统，其影响将超越受资助的机构。具体而言，VertNet将吸引来自美国各地的学生参加两个生物多样性信息学暑期实习和两个生物多样性信息学研讨会。此外，本科生将通过加州大学伯克利分校现有的项目提供志愿者学徒。另一个涉及更广泛社区的讲习班将讨论数字化和数据共享工作长期可持续性的战略。