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
ODE, 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 |
What's Happening in OBPS?
OBPS Now an IOC Project!
At the recent Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Assembly (Paris, June 26- July 4th), the OBPS was approved as an IOC-UNESCO project, jointly sponsored by IODE and GOOS. Details of this decision can be found in the Adopted Decisions and Resolutions report.This now provides a sustained operational capability which will be expanded through grants and other resources. The objectives of the system, as described in the document, include increasing efficiency, reproducibility and interoperability of the entire ocean observing value chain by providing the community with a unified, sustained and readily accessible knowledge base of interdisciplinary best practices. The OBPS working group thanks Peter Pissierssens and Pauline Simpson of IODE and Albert Fischer and Emma Heslop of GOOS for their leadership and significant efforts in achieving this milestone.
Ocean Best Practice Questionnaire
The OBPWG has created a questionnaire “Evolving and Sustaining Ocean Best Practices” to better understand your current and future needs for ocean observing best practices. The results will be available at the OceanObs’19 conference as part of our community discussions of needs for the next decade. If you have not completed the short survey, it is available here. Your contribution is appreciated!
Journal Update
Currently 18 papers have been submitted to Frontiers of Science research theme on Ocean Observations. Of these, 12 have been accepted. Our research theme now shows more than 23,000 views, with submission open until 15 November. Two papers were published in July on the Biogeochemical Argo program and harmful algal bloom research and monitoring.
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OceanObs'19 Update
Ocean Best Practices Community White Paper
A paper titled “Evolving and Sustaining Ocean Best Practices and Standards for the Next Decade” has been published in Frontiers in Marine Science recently on best practices. Led by Jay Pearlman, the authors endorse a collaborative effort at both regional and global scale to ensure efficient monitoring and predicting of the ocean. A crucial initial requirement for such collaborative ocean observing is the need to follow well-defined and reproducible methods across activities: from strategies for structuring observing systems, sensor deployment and usage, and the generation of data and information products, to ethical and governance aspects when executing ocean observing. To meet the urgent, planet-wide challenges we face, methodologies across all aspects of ocean observing should be broadly adopted by the ocean community and, where appropriate, should evolve into “Ocean Best Practices.”
Breakout Session
The Ocean Best Practice Working Group invites you to join us at the OceanObs’19 Conference breakout session “Ocean Best Practices, supporting efficiency, interoperability and quality ocean services”. The session will be held Thursday afternoon (19 Sept) starting at 14:00. This session will consider ocean-observing priorities for best practices across the ocean observing value chain including their creation, their use, and approaches to improve training and adoption at local, regional and global scales consistent with the FAIR principles. The discussions will also include the benefits to you and colleagues involving sustainability, peer review and accommodating the latest technologies. The breakout will be an informal setting between expert panelists and participants on these topics to formulate recommendations for further developments of best practices making them easier to use, and identification of use cases as models for the ocean observing community.
Community News
Mario Tamburri
The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) was established by NOAA in 2001 to bring about fundamental changes in innovation practices in marine technology. It arose at a time when the United States began moving toward the development and implementation of a sustained, national Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). ACT organized its products and services as the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, in preparing "An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century," was examining the transition of marine technologies from the research and development stages to sustained applications.
The ACT program continues today with priorities which include transitioning emerging technologies to operational use rapidly and effectively; maintaining a dialogue among technology users, developers, and providers; identifying technology needs and novel technologies; documenting technology performance and potential; and providing IOOS with information required for the deployment of reliable and cost-effective sensor networks. To meet its goals, ACT provides three fundamental public services: (1) a third-party testbed for quantitatively evaluating the performance of new and existing coastal technologies in the laboratory and under diverse environmental conditions, (2) a forum for capacity building through technology specific workshops that review the current state of instrumentation, build consensus on future directions, and enhance communications between users and developers, and (3) an information clearinghouse through a searchable online database of environmental technologies and social media discussion groups.
Since its inception, ACT has made significant strides to making its vision of “becoming an international resource for facilitating the transition of observing technologies to routine use in coastal environments” a reality. Among its accomplishments, ACT has:
- Organized a networked, virtual “co-laboratory,” consisting of a coordinating Headquarters unit and regionally distributed and geographically diverse partner coastal research institutions, with mechanisms for extensive stakeholder participation.
- Established an internationally recognized, rigorous and quality assured, third-party testbed for evaluating existing, new and developing sensor and sensor platform technologies.
- Evaluated and released reports on the performance of 70 individual instruments from 35 international companies.
- Created an innovative technical workshop format in which participants from all relevant sectors, i.e., R&D, manufacturing, and “operational” coastal management, convene to discuss user needs, the current state of technologies and roadmaps for future development. To date, 47 technology workshops have been conducted, involving over 1,200 participants from around the world.
- Developed an unprecedented online searchable database of environmental instrumentation as a resource for coastal managers, scientists and observing systems.
Third Marine Imagery Workshop
Scott Foster
In June, a group of about 50 experts from 10 different countries, who perform science using marine images (stills or videos) convened for the third time. The workshop was held at the University of Victoria, Canada, hosted by Ocean Networks Canada, and chaired by Mauricio Carrasquilla and Maia Hoeberechts. It consisted of two interweaving parts, with the first a discussion about image annotation, extracting data from images, and how this can be improved, simplified, or quickened. There was a good deal of robust discussion about automated and semi-automated annotation using new and emerging machine learning methods. These discussions, quite naturally lead to the idea of standards to reduce variability between data sets and research institutions and hence to increase re- usability. The second part of the workshop consisted of contributions by workshop participants.
Talks varied in terms of their focus on different parts of the scientific process: from survey design, imaging tools, image processing methods, image storage, annotation methods, machine learning, and some holistic examples of the entire process. All talks were well received and there were constructive discussions after the talk sessions which helped to share information between research groups. Plans are currently being made about the next marine imaging workshop -- it will undoubtedly be another good meeting.
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Looking Ahead
Upcoming Events
Errata
- Issue 14 of the newsletter had an error in co-authorship of the article “Coordinating the Implementation of Mangrove and Seagrass EOVs: Workshop Summary”. Patricia Miloslavich and Erin Sattherthwaite wrote this piece.
- Issue 10 of the newsletter mistakenly attributed the article “Seafloor mapping – a puzzle to be completed” to Vicki Ferrini when it was actually drawn from material written by Anne-Cathrin Wölfl.
Make a Difference
There are ways that you can make the OBPS a useful and robust resource for the ocean research and applications community:
- 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.
Contact obpcommunity@oceanbestpractices.org for further details
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