OUR MISSION Create and implement a comprehensive,sustainable, easy to use Best Practices system for the ocean research and applications community. This includes: A sustained, open access, and internationally recognized repository with advanced indexing and search technology,also featuring DOI- based document IDs Best Practices in Ocean Observing Research Topic in Frontiers in Marine Science journal Community support for training and capacity building CONTRIBUTORS & SPONSORS IODE, GOOS, JCOMM, AWI,IEEE, IOOS, SAEON, SOCIBAtlantOS, INTAROS, ODIP,OceanObs RCN, Geoscience Australia LINKS OBPS OBP Repository Frontiers Research Topic OBP on Twitter Newsletter Archive SUBMIT TO NEWSLETTER

What's Happening in OBPS? Upcoming Ocean Best Practice Workshop For Best Practices and our team, there have been a lot of recent inputs from OceanObs19, a community questionnaire, and the Oceans 2019 Conference. We value all these inputs and recognize there are key issues to be addressed. The 3rd annual Ocean Best Practices Workshop will be held in Ostend Belgium on Dec 2-3 and will address these wide ranging inputs in planning for the next 3-5 years. The Workshop includes the advances in ocean observing over the next decade, processes to synthesize best practices with the same objectives, working with best practices and standards and new paths for training and capacity building. We will finish with a panel on the vision for the decade. The meeting will consist of panels and audience discussion, and all will be engaged. If it sounds like two full days, it certainly will be – but it will be fun! This year we are making a special effort to include young professionals at the meeting and in the panels. Thanks to our sponsors (IEEE OES and IODE) for their generous support in making the workshop possible.   Questions from OceanObs19 During the ocean best practice breakout session at OceanObs19 in September, a list of questions was compiled on Sli.do for response by the OBP working group. We’ll be working through these over the next few issues of the newsletter. Scroll down to see the first lot! Journal Update  Currently 14 papers have been published to Frontiers of Science research theme on Best Practices. The most recent additions are Manual Recovery of a Sea Ice Based Ocean Profiler and Perspectives on in situ Sensors for Ocean Acidification Research. Our research theme now shows more than 32,000 views. Consider submitting your own article to our theme!

Community News

OBPS Forum Created to Support Moorings and More

One of the outcomes of a U.S. National Coastal Ecosystem Moorings Workshop in 2018 was the recommendation that an online discussion forum be established for ecosystems moorings operators and technical staff, to help “share lessons learned, exchange information, and build towards standardization”. At the same time, the OBPS working group was seeking better ways to develop best practices, hoping to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas. It didn’t take too long to connect the two efforts.

Several meetings later, it was decided by OBPS working group members that MyBB was the best platform for our forum - it’s open-sourced and has many desirable attributes. A beta site was created for exploring development, and an operational site stands ready for implementation.This OBPS forum is envisioned to support a broad spectrum of topics, and the mooring subtopic is just the first of many. Mark Bushnell, Tammy Morris, and Dan Sullivan have agreed to serve as administrators of the mooring subtopic forum and have started to post content so that new registrants have a bit of content to view when joining. Participation guidelines are in development, and you are invited to join and share your mooring thoughts, or you can work with your colleagues to create a subtopic that meets your needs. The OBPS and this forum are fit-for-purpose tools designed to assist the oceanographic community, yours to use to benefit your programs and projects.

We thank all involved for their efforts in standing up this forum, particularly Jay Pearlman for his leadership, Pier Luigi Buttigieg and Pauline Simpson for identifying MyBB, Arno Lambert for actually creating the sites, and Kathleen Bailey for initially considering the development.

Ocean Best Practices Q&A

If I publish my Best Practice (or method), how do I know if it is the "best"? 

The Ocean Best Practice System is currently a repository for publicly available guidelines, manuals, standard operating procedures, and best practices. At the moment, there is no differentiation between these, with the exception of meta data. The onus is on the authors to clarify in what situations their methods are most appropriate - and in what situations they are not. Ideally, the authors will also describe the collaboration and review process (e.g. marine sampling field manuals) which can also help a user gauge general uptake and consensus. In many cases, there can be multiple best practices for the same measure or system due to differences in user needs (e.g. multibeam for monitoring, multibeam for technical use). The OBP community will discuss ideas for a proposed Expert Panel endorsement process at the upcoming workshop in December.

Some best practices are code-based and hosted in systems like GitHub - how does this work with this system?

Within the OBPS metadata profile there is a provision for code repositories and/or dataset URI (eg DOI) to be entered. This means that the textual content about the best practice will be uploaded, but links to code will be included in the metadata.

Are there existing best practices from the industrial and commercial sector that could help us define best practices and help us achieve FAIR? More specifically, how do we engage sensor manufacturers in the development and adoption of best practices, particularly regarding sharing their own standards (e.g. calibration)?

There are most certainly applications from the commercial sector that can be integrated into the broader research community via ocean best practices, particularly regarding sensor calibration. The OBP working group has previously invited such representatives to our workshops and discussions, and we have tried to include such manuals and calibration standards in the OBPS repository when possible. Ultimately though, sharing of such standards will come from the manufacturers themselves, and so we need to explore ways to strategically engage the commercial sector as a whole, rather than just individuals.

How do we highlight best practices that we adopt from outside the specific ocean domain (e.g, First Nations principles on ownership, control, access, possession)?

The best way to highlight useful best practices outside the ocean environment are to cite that best practice in your own methods and research communications, including your own best practices! When creating a best practice it is usual to cite references and other community practices utilized to build the new BP.  To assist BP creators, the OBPS has drafted Best Practice templates (see links on the interface). Recent additions to the OBP repository include best practices related to traditional ecological knowledge (i.e. First Nations), particularly from Australia.

Essential Ocean Variables: Transient Tracers
Jordan van Stavel & Toste Tanhua

Transient tracers are compounds that are conservative in seawater and have well-defined decay functions and/or a well-established source function over time at the surface of the ocean. Transient tracers are categorised as a group of (chemical) compounds that can be used to quantify ventilation (contact with the atmosphere) and transport time-scales, possibly in the transit time distribution framework. Measuring this EOV is of great importance as it provides information on the time-scales since ventilation occurred and the transit time distribution (TTD) of a water-mass can be used to infer the concentrations or fates of other transient compounds, such as anthropogenic carbon or nitrous oxide. Transient tracers generally make it possible to trace the pathways of ventilation into the ocean from the surface, although certain tracers are also able to provide additional information such as reverse pathways through gas exchange with the atmosphere. Measured transient tracers include, Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC-12, CFC-11, CFC-113), Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), CCl₄, tritium, 3He, 14C, 39Ar. These transient tracers are generally reported on through individual network annual reports. More information regarding the Best Practices associated with this EOV can be found on the Ocean Best Practice repository, as well as the GOOS specification sheet. 

Nico Lange working on GLODAP and SOCAT data products on the RV Meteor

A Data Process for Marine Spatial Planning in Ireland
Adam Leadbetter, Sarah Flynn, Wil Meaney, Caitriona Nic Aonghusa (Marine Institute, Ireland)

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) brings together multiple communities of users of the ocean – from sectors including government, energy, industry, conservation and recreation – to make informed decisions about how to use marine resources sustainably. In order to make these decisions, MSP practitioners require access to the best-available data from multiple disciplines and sources through services and in formats which can be easily combined in their end-user tools. The Marine Institute is providing technical support, including data management, for the MSP process in Ireland and has developed a process around data to meet this need. This data process builds on and implements the Marine Institute’s Data Management Quality Management Framework which was accredited by IOC-IODE in February 2019.
The data process covers:

• Acknowledging the ownership of the data; intellectual property rights; and copyright.
• Applying data standards to allow integration and reuse.
• Assessing the suitability of a dataset for use in MSP.
• Compiling metadata to describe the provenance of a dataset.
• Publishing the metadata in a data catalogue.
• Assessing the maturity of the stewardship process for a dataset.
• Assessing if a dataset is ready to be used in MSP, for example is it available in a format which can be easily mapped?
• Storing the dataset in a spatially enable data management system.
• And making the data available through a portal.

This data system has been prototyped and piloted in support of the development of the National Marine Planning Framework Baseline Report and the Draft National Marine Planning Framework using funding from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and has been submitted for peer-review to Marine Policy. As the MSP process in Ireland evolves and matures, the data process will be tested and refined. These refinements will ultimately be integrated into best practice.

Poet's Corner

Looking Ahead

Upcoming Events

• Sustainable Ocean Summit in Paris will be 20-22 November 2019
• Annual Evolving and Sustaining Ocean Best Practices Workshop in Oostende Belgium will be 2-3 December 2019
• AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California will be 9-13 December 2019
• Ocean Sciences Meeting in San Diego, California will be 16-21 February 2020

Make a Difference

• Contribute to the Repository - we will help you to do it.
• Become a user of best practices - they are yours to use.
• Volunteer to be a peer reviewer and also contribute methods papers to the journal.
• Contribute to the newsletter – tell us about your successes and lessons learned and news from your organization.
• Participate with us as an associate.