ESIP Biological Data Cluster (BDS) Primer Guide
1 Introduction
This is still a work in progress and only presented here for the purposes of receiving feedback. This message will be removed when the Primer Guide has been officially published.
To paraphrase the MARCO-BOLO data management plan, the main challenge with biological data is that it comes in many flavors. For example, it may include evidence of past or present organisms based on physical samples, chemicals, organic molecules, sound, or images. By using standards to organize and share data efficiently, biologists can turn this diversity of data types into a strength rather than a challenge when dealing with biological data.
This Primer Guide
The first product from this cluster, the Biological Data Standards Primer, is an easy to digest resource for new biological data managers. However, it is essentially a list of names and links. We created this Primer Guide with the intention of providing additional context, bridging the gap between technical standards documentation and the lists of links available in the Primer.
Audience
The target audience for this Primer Guide is anyone interested in working with biological data, from data collection, to data sharing, and data management. We hope this Primer Guide will provide useful context for using biological standards.
In designing this resource, we focused on a few key values.
Helping People Climb: We want to help people learn about data standards resources. We were students too; we know how rarely this is part of a standard science education.
Always Feeding Back: Information and standards develop too quickly to publish guidance in a journal. You can immediately let us know what isn’t working, or what is wrong, via GitHub issues. We’re excited to work with you to make this better!
Transparent: Sometimes resources are confusing until you understand the journey of how it was created. Having experienced this ourselves, we want to share the conversations that helped us edit this resource.
Background on the Cluster
The ESIP Biological Data Standards Cluster formed in 2020 to maximize data relevance and utility for understanding changes in biodiversity over time. The cluster’s focus has expanded to include more aspects of biology beyond biodiversity, acknowledging that biological data may be useful for many facets of earth science. To accomplish this, the cluster encourages awareness and shared understanding of biological data standards by facilitating community building and information sharing via guidance, documentation, and training for the US biological data community.
How to contribute to this Primer Guide
If you would like to suggest changes or additions to the current version of the best practice documents, please use the GitHub issues to document your request.
Translations
Currently we only have the capacity to offer it in English. However, users can get a rough translation using Google Translate. Just drop the url in this service: https://translate.google.com/?sl=en&tl=es&op=websites