Polar Data Forum

What does the Polar Data Forum consist of?

The Polar Data Forum (PDF) is a place where polar data holders get together and make more use of data. The Forum has two main components: the Conference, where the border between funding, policy and data is explored through presentations and posters; and Workshop Sessions & Hackathons, where the Polar Data Community opens the dialogue to make progress on their shared objectives.

Polar Data Forum IV

After a long period of uncertainty due to the current Covid-19 crisis, we are pleased to announce that Polar Data Forum IV(PDF IV) will be co-hosted by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and the European Polar Board (EPB) and held online from September 20th to 24th, 2021. 

The meeting will be co-organized with regional partners including the Southern Ocean Observing System, Standing Committee on Antarctic Data Management, the World Data System, EuroGOOS, and many other organizations engaged in polar data management.

Based on the activities and discussions from PDF III, and particularly, on a workshop focused on marine data led by EuroGOOS, the focus of PDF IV will be put on the polar oceans. This also enables the Forum to be aligned with the launch of the UN Decade of Ocean Science and the 2nd Southern Ocean Regional Workshop which will be co-organised during the same week as PDF IV.

PDF IV will consist of a series of workshops and hackathons from September 20th to 22nd to build on the development work done during previous meetings, followed by a 2-day plenary conference to be held from September 23rd to 24th in support of information exchange.

Scientific Rationale 

PDF IV is collocated and co-organised with the 2nd Southern Ocean Regional Workshop for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (UNDOS). It therefore focuses on data management issues that can support UNDOS activities in the Southern Ocean, as well as broader polar data management issues. We acknowledge that the data needs for the Southern- and Arctic Ocean have many commonalities and many science organisations collect data at both ends of the world, so there is particular value in developing solutions that work for both the Arctic and Antarctic. 

At the first UNDOS Southern Ocean workshop in San Diego, USA, in February 2020, and preparatory virtual workshops in autumn 2020 leading to the “Ocean Decade – Arctic Action Plan”  stakeholders identified priorities for the decade, many of which need input from data managers. The workshops, in particular, highlighted the need for better understanding of changes in The Polar Oceans species and food webs; sea ice; and biogeochemical cycling. It called for more capability in satellite and in-situ observing, as well as in modelling, which means stronger data management systems to support those observations and modelling projects. The workshops also highlighted the need for an observing system to be both international and multidisciplinary, so as to allow individual datasets to be used many times to answer different kinds of questions. 

Observations in the Polar Oceans are undertaken to serve both operational and scientific needs, across both oceanographic and polar programs, so the resulting data systems must be capable of addressing the needs from all these communities l. Collocating PDF IV and the 2nd UNDOS Southern Ocean Regional Workshop provides an opportunity to better align data management activities by polar communities and to work directly with Southern Ocean scientists as both providers and users of Southern Ocean data.

Hackathon topics

Documenting Data Flows into Aggregators

Lead(s): Pip Bricher, Antonio Novellino, Jay Pearlman, and Patrick Gorringe

With several countries building new polar research vessels and the associated data systems, it is a good opportunity to standardise data handling processes. One example is the development of an event logger deployment vocabulary to standardise description of actions and processes for ship instrument deployments. To minimise duplication of efforts, it would make sense to discuss development of such a ship event logger and terminology that can be broadly applicable on any marine platform.

Please note that this is a joint session with the IOC-UNESCO Ocean Best Practices System’s Fifth Annual Community Workshop and subject to their Privacy Policy and Code of Conduct.

Preliminary Agenda

Interoperability for polar observing networks and logistical resources 

Lead(s): Joseph Nolan, Bill Manley, Jan Rene Larsen, and Allison Gaylord

Within the polar and oceanographic communities there is an increasing interest to integrate  databases of observing assets, networks, and logistical resources, including research stations, vessels, and expeditions. Integrating these databases requires cross walks of metadata models and the agreement of best practice methods for sharing the information between catalogues in order to achieve a unified view within and beyond the polar regions.

This session will include discussions  on: 1) an EU-PolarNet 2 initiative for a “procedure for ongoing collection and collation of European Polar observing capacities and activities”, and 2) use cases and a metadata model for a task by the SAON Polar Observing Assets Working Group:  a registry of Polar observing networks focusing on interoperability parameters.

Semantics and Vocabularies

Lead(s): Chantelle Verhey

This session will be used to complete a Gap Analysis of common vocabularies that can be crosswalked. There are numerous groups working on semantic harmonization, such as the alignment of SWEET/ENVO vocabularies. It would be beneficial to see what the most common vocabularies are, and how they are being used in polar settings, and prioritize which would be useful to align next. This can be used to ensure inclusion of indigenous semantic resources, or outline a plan for how to include them moving forward.

Preliminary Agenda

Polar Federated Search 

Lead(s): Pip Bricher, Chantelle Verhey, Ruth Duerr, and Taco de Bruin

Federated metadata search for the polar regions is dependent on the data centres that host polar-relevant data being able to present discovery metadata in a common way. The POLDER working group is developing a best practice guidance for the implementation of schema.org as a potentially light weight discovery metadata standard serving in particular the long tail data. The polar guidance contributes to and draws on similar efforts in allied science communities. This session will progress the development of that best practice documentation as well as inform the development of the pilot federated search tool that is currently being supported by the World Data System.

Preliminary Agenda

VREs for Polar Oceans

Lead(s): Soulaine Theocharides, Anton Van de Putte, and Karen Payne

What is needed for VRE’s that support the science we need for the polar oceans that we want.

The goal of this session is to articulate the needs of a Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for the polar data community. It is both a needs assessment and visioning exercise that asks participants who represent many different roles what features or components they need in a VRE. We encourage professionals from different roles to weigh in on the discussion: administrators, data managers, research scientists, and policy makers. 

In addition to the desirable characteristics of VREs in general, are there specific platforms or data feeds that the community would benefit from development. For example, what is the future vision and plan to bring together GOOS, GCOS, GOS and GEOSS or other polar ocean resources.

Preliminary Agenda

Best practices for polar data management – an interactive session bringing together polar researchers and polar data managers

Lead(s): Helen Peat and Johnathan Kool

Members of the Arctic and Antarctic data communities will be holding a workshop to interactively engage with researchers and program leaders (or anyone!) to discuss how data management expertise can help collate datasets and improve the trust that researchers can have in data compilations and data products.

If you are involved in a project which brings together data from a variety of sources and formats, then this workshop is for you! 

This workshop will enable you to come and discuss your project with a range of data management experts and will act as a forum for providing information, offering advice, and helping to build networks. Topic suggestions in advance of the meeting will be welcomed (please send your suggestions to the workshop conveners).

Data policy

Lead(s): Stein Tronstad, Peter Pulsifer, and Maribeth Murray

At the Polar Data Forum III, held in Helsinki, Finland, in November 2019, a process was initiated to develop a basis for alignment of polar data policies. The process, involving data managers and experts from international polar data committees in both hemispheres, resulted in a report recommending ten fundamental principles for polar data policies.

 During this session we will look at those principles and other recent developments relating to international data policies and discuss the next steps towards further alignment across polar and global scientific communities and observation systems. Representatives of the relevant organisations are invited to present their views on the continued alignment process.