OBIS INDEEP training and workshop

The aim of this workshop was to connect the deep-sea biological community to OBIS, with the aim to establish a deep-sea OBIS node and develop a customized deep-sea OBIS data portal. This is in response to the call from the OBIS Steering Group meeting (Feb 2015) to liaise with INDEEP and O'Hara et al (2015) to establish a global deep-sea biodiversity data-sharing platform. The course topics were quite diverse: (1) Training deep-sea scientists in data management (OBIS standards and best practices)? and data access and data processing using OBIS, (2) hands-on data curation and archeology (digitizing historical datasets and QA/QC of existing datasets in OBIS), (3) design of a new OBIS deep-sea data and information portal (which products would be useful for making it policy-relevant?), connecting OBIS with other information systems (e.g. WoRDDS, Deep-sea species traits, deep-sea vocabs) and (4) discuss sustainability (develop a work plan, share responsibilities and tasks, funding).