=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1933/keynote-specht
|storemode=property
|title=None
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1933/keynote-specht.pdf
|volume=Vol-1933
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==None==
<pdf width="1500px">https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1933/keynote-specht.pdf</pdf>
<pre>
      Engaging the Domain Expert: Is It just a
                     Dream?

                                  Alison Specht

 CEntre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB), Aix-en-Provence,
                                      France
                   alison.specht@fondationbiodiversite.fr



Abstract
Much of the work of creating open data repositories, and of enabling the shar-
ing and discovery of their contents, is conducted by informatics specialists on
behalf of the communities that they serve. Some, such as the genomics, remote
sensing and medical communities, have a good record of participation in data
sharing, custodianship, discovery and re-use, and are familiar with the proce-
dures involved. Ecological scientists, especially those engaged in experimental
and observational studies where the data are gathered personally, not through
automatized means, are not so participative.
    Ecological scientists are, for a start, very possessive of their data; they are
collected through their own blood, sweat, and tears. They know well the value
of long-term observations and experiments in order to make scientific decisions
about change (extinctions, rarity and so on), and are among the first to support
their need, but they are reluctant to share their own data. In addition, the big
questions that face ecological scientists demand that they work across disciplines
as well as collaborate within their own community. The rates of data sharing and
re-use by ecologists are among the lowest in the sciences, whereas data loss is
comparatively high. Why? How can we improve this situation?
    I will discuss the particular challenges of dragging ecologists into the open
data world. I will comment on the steps in the research data lifecycle where the
requirements of participation are particularly distracting for ecologists. I will
describe an initiative that has been developed to enable domain specialists
to take control of their terminological understanding in a manner that
facilitates the assembly of heterogeneous data sets, and at the same time
prepares them for open delivery of their compiled data. I suggest that
through this process, they will better understand the requirements for data
sharing and custodianship, and will be more likely to participate in all facets of
the open data world, improving the availability of long-term data sets!


Biography
Alison Specht is an environmental scientist with interest in facilitating trans-
disciplinary, convergent research between scientists, policy-makers and managers
to improve environmental outcomes, and in improving data management and
preservation of archival data for effective long-term monitoring.
    From 2009 to 2014 she was the director of the Australian Centre for Eco-
logical Analysis and Synthesis (www.aceas.org.au), a facility of the Terrestrial
Ecosystem Research Network (www.tern.org.au), the first synthesis centre in the
Southern Hemisphere. Since September 2015 she has been Director of CESAB,
the CEntre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity in France (cesab.org).
She is a core partner of the International Synthesis Consortium (synthesis-
consortium.org). She has been a member of the DataONE (www.dataone.org)
Usability and Assessment Working Group since its inception in 2010.

</pre>