Ensuring public accessibility of the International Whaling Commission's Statistics Data Archive
Funding Area: Critical shared infrastructure / Infraestructura compartida critica
Problem Statement: Despite the proven usefulness of the IWC data, it is not readily accessible to the public or the scientific community. IWC Catch data is of national importance and is communicated and stored at the Public Records Office – this has created a greater urgency to ensure its long term resilience and accessibility. The data is often not easily accessible to analysts as a lot of data, especially historical data, are in paper format. This project aims to ‘modernise’ the management of the IWC statistical data archives, data and its analytical tools in order to improve accessibility and make the organisation a leader in data driven science.
Proposed Activities: Funds are sought to purchase software to enable database creation and to expand current server capacity for sections of the Statistics Archive that are not currently accessible to the general public or the wider research community. Digitised sections of the archive will be held on a server following correct archiving protocol and the metadata will be become publicly available. The IWC Secretariat has been making changes to improve efficiency in data acquisition and management and to integrate the use of technology to mitigate decreasing human resources. This project aims to develop a comprehensive strategy towards the modernisation of data and analytical tools based on the needs of the Secretariat, the Scientific Committee and the general public. The project has the following objectives: Objective 1: Increase the efficiency of the IWC Statistics Data Archive Objective 2: Increase Data Visibility and Accessibility Objective 3: Follow the principles of open science including FAIR data. November 1st 2023: Purchase of software necessary for database creation, servers and storage space initialised. Server host and maintenance agreement required. Expertise in-house February 2024 : Servers up and running, begin migration of existing data, retrieval and reading of data not already in databases. External data retrieval expertise required. May2024: Testing of data and servers, begin building front-end for public access and data visualisations. Front-end software required, expertise in-house November 2024: Go live - publishing of public-facing assets. Expertise in-house May 2025: Review by IWC Scientific Committee for data accuracy. Expertise in-house November 2025: Project concludes, server hosting continues
Openness: Digitised sections of the archive will be held on a server following correct archiving protocol and the metadata will become publicly available. The IWC will promote and publicise project outputs and learning at our biennial international Scientific Committee and Commission meetings. The joint Working group of the Scientific and Conservation Committees has the overall aim of collaboration: collating and prioritising the conservation recommendations of the two groups and developing effective strategies to communicate and implement them. This ensures the latest research and advice of the Scientific Committee can be considered by the joint group. A key output of this working group is the Database of Recommendations developed to aid collaboration between the two Committees that holds recommendations of the Commission and all its sub-groups including legally binding Schedule Amendments, Resolutions and recommendations agreed at sub-group meetings and workshops. The project will be utilised as a pilot project with learning applied to the wider general archive held at IWC. IWC will follow the principles of open science including FAIR data, with archival management and data sharing integrated into our collaborations with the Cambridge Conservation Initiative as a member of the Cambridge Conservation Forum within the UK and our wider international research collaborators, including COMAFHAT/ALATFCO, IOTC, NOAA, CITES, CMS, FAO and NAMMCO.
Challenges: IWC Statistics archive datasets are often in unknown formats where a specialised archive digitisation service provider will need to be sourced. Once the databases are publicly accessible data will need to be cleaned so that data errors can be identified and mitigated.
Neglectedness: IWC recently applied for a Resilience Grant from the National Archive UK to facilitate the digitisation of a section of the Statistics archive. Results will be published in mid August 2023. A fully accredited document scanning, document management and heritage digitisation service will be utilised to scan and digitise our historical statistics archive that is skilled in the handling of historical fragile material and has Museum Association Professional membership. Original bound volumes, considering the type of binding, the curvature of the pages, and the proximity of the text to the gutter, require an overhead scanner along with preservation foam supports. This approach will produce a cleaner image whilst ensuring the protection of material during digitisation.
Success: A publicly accessible dataset of IWC progress reports, catch data and ship strikes, with access facilitated to cetacean researchers worldwide.
Total Budget: US$7888
Budget File: pdf
Affiliations: International Whaling Commission
LMIE Carveout: The International Whaling Commission finances independent cetacean research work worldwide and has capacity building programmes for Bycatch, Entanglement and Strandings technical assistance within LMIEs. IWC has a MoU with ATLAFCO, the Ministerial Conference on fisheries cooperation among African States bordering the Atlantic Ocean, an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1989 gathering 22 countries from Morocco to Namibia. The MoU aims to formalise and strengthen existing collaboration, including data collection & scientific research. The work of the IWC Scientific Committee is the backbone of global stock assessments, formulation of Conservation Management Plans and the designation of whale sanctuaries to ensure stock preservation.
Team Skills: Dr Isidora Katara Lead for Statistics and Modelling: Project Manager. Isidora is a marine scientist with strong analytical and problem solving skills and experience advising stakeholders, including policymakers, managers and NGOs. Specialties: Quantitative Ecology Geographic Information Systems Database Management. Moussa Ki Sow, IT & Database Supervisor: Advanced database skills, with advanced knowledge of HTML,SQL,PHP, Git versioning, Elsie Whittle Data Officer: Project Officer Harriet Pinder Projects Coordinator: Grant Coordinator Project management will be overseen by Isidora Katara, with delivery facilitated by Elsie Whittle. Elsie Whittle has over a decade of statistical archive experience. Grant administration and budgeting will be overseen by Harriet Pinder, member of the Finance and Administration Team at the IWC Secretariat. The IWC is committed to robust and transparent financial management. All financial processes operate according to the Financial Regulations and are managed by the Finance and Administration Committee, supported by its subsidiary body, the Budgetary Subcommittee. The Commission’s Accounts are publicly available, and receive an annual audit by an independent auditor. Project delivery will evaluated through monitoring of milestones, with risks identified and mitigated through robust monitoring and evaluation procedures, including following rigorous auditing protocol.
Submission Number: 129
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