In this project, the well-established Belgian node aims to transfer the knowledge and experience to the newly established Croatian node through a series of hands-on workshops discussing all relevant available information from the GBIF secretariat, including:
- strategy (Strategic Framework, Implementation Plan and Work Programmes),
- governance (the GBIF structure, Governing board, Nodes and network),
- technical topics (standards, data cleaning, data publishing, data papers, Github repository),
- other opportunities for nodes (CESP, ECA nodes, Ambassador program, mentor program, GBIF community forum)
The aim of the workshops will be to explore how those elements can be best implemented in the work of Croatian GBIF node.
Through cofunding the project team will also invite scientists from other Balkan countries active in another GBIF-related project to take part in the workshops.
Project progress
At final reporting the project had achieved all planned activities and fulfilled all expected outputs. The project was an intensive collaboration between the Belgian Biodiversity Platform (BBPF) and Croatian GBIF node (CroBIF), resulting in a noticeable increase in knowledge and capacity of CroBIF for data mobilization.
In February 2024 the project successfully held a data mobilization event “CROMENT Workshop on biodiversity data and the GBIF network 2024”, consisting of three different data mobilization workshops held consecutively for the scientific community. Attended by 25 participants from 16 different institutions, the programme included hands-on and technical workshops to teach about the data mobilization and publication process, where best practice examples on data cleaning and data management were given, including detailed information on the use of DarwinCore Standard and the use of IPT. In addition, a GBIF community workshop was held where information on the GBIF network and policy, Living Atlases and open data principle was provided.
A website containing all presentations and relevant materials from the mobilization workshop was created and serves as a source of information on data mobilization and publishing steps. The project also established an informal network of representatives of scientific institutions and expert civil society organizations to communicate further about biodiversity data mobilization.
The project published to GBIF more than 60,000 records in three datasets. This exceeded the project’s original plans for data mobilization and includes a dataset of 3,000 records of saproxylic beetles which was a result of the data mobilization strategy exercise carried out at the workshop.
In addition to the above, the project drafted a National Data Mobilisation Strategy, and, after contacts with the governmental office in charge of open data policy in Croatia and Croatian Open Data Portal were made, activities for mobilization of biodiversity data and strengthening of CroBIF were included in the draft of the national Action Plan for Implementation of the Open Data Policy 2024-2025.
Furthermore, as part of the open data principle in the region, CroBIF hosted the GBIF Europe and Central Asia Nodes meeting in May 2024, followed by the workshop ‘Mobilising biodiversity data to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility’, which, attended by potential publishers from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, proved to be an additional opportunity to widen the network with representatives of expert civil society organizations.
Communication about data mobilization related activities and implementation of a Croatian Living Atlas continues. A new web portal of the Croatian Nature Protection Information system (https://bioportal.hr/gbif-hrvatska/) was developed, with a special section dedicated to open data and data mobilization activities and dissemination of all GBIF related information.
