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 guidelines have 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 an inherent challenge of dealing with biological data.
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. The first product from this cluster, the Biological Data Standards Primer, is an easy to digest resource for new biological data managers.
We build on this foundational product by providing additional context and details in the following suite of Biological Data Standards Primer Guides. The guides are intended to be a bridge between a deep dive into the standards documentation, and the lists of links available in the primer. The target audience for these guides is anyone interested in working with biological data, from data collection, to data sharing, and data management. We hope these Primer Guides will provide useful context for using biological standards.
How to contribute
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. The current draft can be seen as a rendered webpage here.