Towards a Post-Graduate Level Curriculum for Biodiversity Informatics. Perspectives from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Community
Creators
- Parker-Allie, Fatima1
- Pando, Francisco2
- Telenius, Anders3
- Ganglo, Jean4
- Vélez, Danny5
- Gibbons, Mark6
- Talavan, Alberto7
- Raymond, Melianie8
- Russell, Laura9
- Talukdar, Gautam10
- Vargas, Manuel11
- Radji, Raoufou12
- Koivula, Hanna13
- Heughebaert, André14
- Endresen, Dag15
- Amariles-García, Daniel16
- Osawa, Takeshi17
- 1. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Cape Town, South Africa
- 2. Real Jardin Botanico -CSIC, Madrid, Spain
- 3. Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden
- 4. Laboratoire des Sciences Forestières, Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques, Université d'Abomey-Calavi, Abomey-Calavi, Benin
- 5. Instituto Alexander von Humboldt, Bogotá, Colombia
- 6. University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
- 7. Independent Consultant, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 8. GBIF, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 9. GBIF, Copenhagen, Denmark|University of Kansas, KU Biodiversity Institute, Lawrence, United States of America|VertNet, Lawrence, United States of America
- 10. Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India
- 11. Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica
- 12. University of Lome, Lome, Togo
- 13. CSC- IT Centre for Science, Espoo, Finland
- 14. Belgian Biodiversity Platform, Bruxelles, Belgium
- 15. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway|University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway|GBIF Norway, Oslo, Norway
- 16. International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Colombia
- 17. Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan
Description
Biodiversity informatics is a new and evolving field, requiring efforts to develop capacity and a curriculum for this field of science. The main objective was to summarise the level of activity and the efforts towards developing biodiversity informatics curricula, for work-based training and/or academic teaching at universities, taking place within the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) countries and its associated network. A survey approach was used to identify existing capacities and resources within the network. Most of GBIF Nodes survey respondents (80%) are engaged in onsite training activities, with a focus on work-based professionals, mostly researchers, policy-makers and students. Training topics include data mobilisation, digitisation, management, publishing, analysis and use, to enable the accessibility of analogue and digital biological data that currently reside as scattered datasets. An initial assessment of academic teaching activities highlighted that countries in most regions, to varying degrees, were already engaged in the conceptualisation, development and/or implementation of formal academic programmes in biodiversity informatics, including programmes in Benin, Colombia, Costa Rica, Finland, France, India, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan and Togo. Digital e-learning platforms were an important tool to help build capacity in many countries. In terms of the potential in the Nodes network, 60% expressed willingness to be recruited or commissioned for capacity enhancement purposes. Contributions and activities of various country nodes across the network have been highlighted and a working curriculum framework has been defined.
Files
BDJ_article_68010.pdf
Files
(474.9 kB)
Name | Size | Download all |
---|---|---|
md5:b1bb3acc6589f6d11e023776199c02e9
|
474.9 kB | Preview Download |
System files
(147.9 kB)
Name | Size | Download all |
---|---|---|
md5:2f679c1956bd50876f85b55b82aa5e62
|
147.9 kB | Download |
Linked records
Additional details
Related works
- Has part
- Figure: 10.3897/BDJ.9.e68010.figure2 (DOI)
- Figure: 10.3897/BDJ.9.e68010.figure1 (DOI)
- Other: 10.3897/BDJ.9.e68010.suppl1 (DOI)