NBN Survey for Undigitised Data/Records/Sightings

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SteveMcBill
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NBN Survey for Undigitised Data/Records/Sightings

Post by SteveMcBill »

Data, Data, Everywhere ......:

06/07/2015 - http://www.nbn.org.uk/News/Latest-news/ ... where.aspx

“The most significant barrier to digitisation [is] …lack of funding. Put simply, digitisation cannot happen without significant financial support, usually from an external body.” JISC Digitisation in the UK report, 2005.

We are increasingly hearing about vast quantities of data sitting in boxes, in field recording maps and recording forms, in natural history notebooks and within museum collections which are potentially just gathering dust. Our original estimate was that there could be as much as five times the amount of data currently held on the NBN Gateway in undigitised formats. Perhaps a more realistic estimate could in fact be twice this, especially taking into account our herbaria, fungaria, museums and other natural history collections across the UK.

You have identified data mobilisation as an important area to focus on through the NBN Strategy, resulting in a strategic action focussing specifically on this:

“Develop a UK strategy for mobilising historic survey data and secure resources for historic data digitisation and mobilisation (including crowdsourcing data capture). This includes development and promotion of online citizen data capture systems to support volunteers in the digitisation of historic datasets”

A large element of this action is the continued work seeking funding and support for mobilising historic data. This started in 2014 with the NBN Data Capture Initiative, a successful bid to the Cabinet Office to mobilise close to a million records from across England over five months. This has now lead to the formation of the 'NBN Inventory of Undigitised Datasets' - a live Google Form developed to gain a better understanding of what data are actually out there and what formats they can be found in. Through this inventory we can start to build a really strong case for significant investment and start to prioritise these datasets for mobilisation.

Over the past five months, the Secretariat of the NBN Trust has heard through this Inventory from over 20 organisations totalling 30 species, and two habitat datasets, estimated to cover 20 million biological records!! We would love to hear from you as to what data you hold, or know of, which require digitisation. Please let us know through the Inventory and help us build a full picture of the scale of the challenge ahead so together we can start tackling it head on!

Our plans for the coming months to move this project forward include submitting a funding bid in the Autumn to start mobilising datasets not suited to crowdsourcing data capture. We would also like to look at how we can use ‘the power of the crowd’ to help support you to capture these data in digital format. This could include uploading images online of the data sheet, specimen or notebook and using volunteers across the globe to extract these data.

We will be arranging a Crowdsource Data Capture Summit in September, likely to be held at Manchester Museum to bring together the organisations currently working in this area and those who have data which may be suitable for crowdsource data capture. This one day event will look at current available crowdsourcing infrastructure and ongoing initiatives both here in the UK and elsewhere across the globe, identify any potential gaps, and start to look at how we can maximise these infrastructure and the crowd to mobilise these data. More details on this event will be available soon.

As identified in the JISC* Digitisation in the UK report (2005) “digitisation cannot happen without significant financial support, usually from an external body.” While there can be no doubt about this, it is important to add that we need collaboration and a joined up view to tackle this enormous, yet achievable task of mobilising our historic data holdings. The NBN partnership has the skills and tools needed to achieve this and by working together over the next few years we will see our vast quantities of historic, undigitised data released from their boxes and our history of biological recording continue to be celebrated.

There are three easy steps to how you can get involved and help;
1. Submit any datasets you know of which are not currently digitised to the NBN Inventory of Undigitised Data
2. Spread the word - tell your colleagues, partner organisations, friends, family about this initiative. Maybe even Tweet about it!
3. Let us know if you might be interested in getting involved in the Crowdsource Data Capture Summit. More details on this event will be available in the coming weeks.

If you have any questions, ideas or would like to discuss any of this further please do not hesitate to get in touch with Rachel Stroud.

* Jisc (formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee, and still commonly referred to as JISC) is a United Kingdom non-departmental public body whose role is to support post-16 and higher education, and research, by providing leadership in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in learning, teaching, research and administration. It is funded by all the UK post-16 and higher education funding councils."

- See more at: http://www.nbn.org.uk/News/Latest-news/ ... b1I22.dpuf

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