NBII - Pacific Basin Information Node- Strategic Plan

Planning for the future

Pacific Basin Information Node Strategic Plan: 2002 to 2005

Table of Contents
I.   Purpose of Plan
II.  General Background
III.  Mission
IV. Vision
V.  PBIN Participants
VI. Key Planning Assumptions
VII. Key Strategies
VIII.Rules of Governance
IX.  Key Tasks: 2002-2005

Strategy 1

Strategy 2

Strategy 3

Strategy 4

X. Current Parnters

I. Purpose of the Plan

This plan is the result of a series of collaborative strategizing meetings held in April and May of 2002. The plan was developed by the agencies and organizations listed in the back as “Partners.” The plan seeks to guide PBIN’s initial organization and development and has a 3-year time horizon from now through 2005. Specifically, the plan:

Describes PBIN’s background and mission;
Charts the broad actions needed to bring PBIN to a point of maturity; and
Establishes expectations about organizational directions and governance.

Recognizing that having a “strategy” is always more important than having a fancy strategic plan, we note that this document is a framework and jump off point rather than a specific blueprint.^[1]

II. General Background

Pacific Basin Information Node (“PBIN”) is the marriage of several initiatives, all intended to address emerging conservation issues throughout the Pacific Basin. The national effort, or National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), grew from studies sponsored by the Department of Interior and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Those studies recognized the need for a partnership to develop a “National Biotic Resources Information System.”The system was originally envisioned as a distributed “federation of data bases” designed to make existing information more accessible and to establish mechanisms for efficient, coordinated collection and dissemination of new information. Further review by The President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST, 1998) urged a more active role in the form of analytic and synthetic abilities. Simultaneously, local organizations and individuals concerned with Pacific Island conservation urged further collaboration on the scientific and informational aspects of locally pressing issues, especially the escalating invasion of alien species. ^[2]

III. Mission

The overriding purpose of PBIN is to equip people with an ongoing information infrastructure through which high quality biodiversity information related to Hawaii and the Pacific Basin can be acquired, analyzed, and distributed.

Vision

When fully realized, PBIN will be a sophisticated, intuitive, and comprehensive knowledge base for the biological resources associated with the Pacific Basin including tropical and subtropical islands and the surrounding marine environment. It will serve as a resource for educating people, enabling scientific progress, and addressing issues related to biodiversity conservation. On a daily basis, it will provide tools that can be used to discover, access, and analyze data about the region’s biological resources. Users entering the system will find image libraries, cross-referenced data sets, taxonomies, GIS maps, and other materials that will allow them to perform general or specialized analyses. ^[3]

V. PBIN Participants

PBIN will support a wide range of users including, but not limited to, scientists, policy makers, resource managers, land use planners, and developers, students, teachers, and the general public. A broad diversity of users will be intentionally encouraged. Organizationally, PBIN will be guided by a “steering committee” made up of institutional “partners” ^[4] who also may be major users and led by PBIN’s director who is functionally accountable to NBII. Broad participation and involvement in the development of PBIN is encouraged.

VI. Key Planning Assumptions

This plan rests on the following assumptions:

Because conservation issues are critical to the future of Hawaii and the Pacific region, there is a pressing and shared need for high quality information among all concerned organizations. While PBIN will initially have a Hawaiian focus, over the longer term it will become as geographically comprehensive as possible through efforts around the Pacific Basin and through linkages to other regions.
From the outset, PBIN is intended to be a collaboration of interested federal, state and local agencies, educational institutions, and non-governmental organizations. While each organization has its own mission and agenda, which may or may not be consistent with all other PBIN participants, all partners share a common mission of supporting conservation based upon good science and are working together on this node out of shared goals and expectations.
Because of the potentially large amounts of data and the complex nature of the problems faced by the conservation community, this plan is predicated on access to supercomputing capabilities.
Initial base funding for PBIN will come primarily from USGS. Eventually, funding will come from a variety of sources in addition to the base NBII funds. These sources will provide funds for specific unique projects as well as base funds where appropriate.
The base NBII funds will be distributed as necessary to fund operations of the node and other short-term projects as appropriate. No partner has a lock on funding indefinitely and leveraging of funds is encouraged and can be used to help promote additional investment in PBIN-related projects.
PBIN will seek to provide data openly and freely to facilitate data analysis and knowledge development. However, it will operate in such a way so as to allow contributors to retain ownership of their data and ensure that they get credit for sharing their data as a part of PBIN.
PBIN will try to provide access to data or information that is only available through purchase. However, PBIN itself will not be involved in any transactions between buyers and sellers. Transactions will be the responsibility of data owners and interested clients. PBIN itself will not sell data.
While PBIN will not normally fund biological research, funds may be made available for data recovery or development of analyses and synthesis tools.
PBIN anticipates the need for differential levels of access to data. All decisions over access, confidentiality, and propriety will be determined by data contributors, and not by PBIN.

VII. Key Strategies

To bring the PBIN system to its full capabilities, four complementary and interrelated goals must be achieved over the next several years:

Build PBIN’s infrastructure and content, i.e., the hardware and software systems needed and the information, data, and tools that it will contain. ^[5]
Develop and refine PBIN’s services to partners, users, and other affiliates. This will begin by building a strong base in Hawaii and the U.S. territories and then expand tom other countries. ^[6]
Develop and refine PBIN’s operations and collaborative governance. The operations component should include a strategy for business development that is based upon both scope and geography.
Conduct systematic outreach, education, and communication to all contributors and users.

VIII. Rules of Governance

PBIN will develop formal contractual agreements between the partners. While decision-making will be collaborative, final administrative authority rests with NBII/USGS. In the spirit of collaboration, difficult decisions will be made with the following principles in mind:

All partners (as defined in V above) are equal and will form a steering committee for PBIN.
The steering committee may form ad hoc working groups as needed to provide recommendations on specific issues.
The steering committee will address any and all decisions that are relevant to PBIN, i.e. key annual directions, what projects to recommend for funding, reasonable resource allocations etc.
The general operating principle is to make well informed, highly inclusive, and consensual decisions in which everyone agrees. However, recognizing that consensus may not be achievable for every decision, and acknowledging NBII’s overall administrative authority, the default decision-making mode for group decisions, will be a majority vote.
The steering committee will work closely with the PBIN coordinator and the NBII steering committee to reach agreement on critical decisions.
An annual report will be prepared for all partners, affiliates, and users summarizing accomplishments and serving as data for out-year planning.

IX. Key Tasks: 2002 to 2005

Strategy 1

Build PBIN’s technical infrastructure and content, i.e., the hardware and software systems needed and the information, data, and tools that it will contain.^[7]

Establish procedures to ensure adequate data maintenance and upkeep.
Set standards and nomenclature for node operations. ^[8]
Develop data policies that define the roles and responsibilities of partners and customers and that specifically address topics such as data and information integrity, security, stewardship, and ownership.
Develop procedures to ensure QC/QA for all data.
Develop tools that will allow partners to easily input or migrate data and metadata into the system. This will likely expand to include tools for maintenance and updating of databases as the node matures.
Prepare an acquisition plan to identify specific themes where relevant data are needed and to fill gaps in existing data sources.
Implement pilot projects on invasive species.
Implement Internet services such as standard web services as well as Internet map services.
Build a system of tools that allow users to query data sets, combine data, and view the data in special ways as necessary to aid with the analysis including 3D representations.
Devise specific system capabilities that allow for building, testing, or combining simple of complex models to generate new knowledge.This will include high performance computing capabilities to allow for applications that the have large computational requirements or that include very large data sets.

Strategy 2

Develop and refine PBIN’s services to partners, users, and other affiliates

Develop an operational ITIS regional site at the Bishop Museum, provide access to or ability to create life histories of organisms from existing data sources, and provide mechanisms to aid in the identification of organisms, particularly new alien organisms. Planning for the site should include museum and taxonomic information services to PBIN users.^[9]
Detail a specific set of tools that offers assistance to users for locating information as in a digital library with linkages to data or other information products in a variety of formats and at a variety of locations including the use of online search engine(s) or browsing to aid inexperienced and experienced users.
Offer relevant software catalogues and software evaluations; and data and information warehousing services for partners.
Detail a specific set of training and/or consultation services for partners and collaborators that might include applying metadata for describing information content, applying data collection protocols, database design and long term storage, assistance with the development of databases and information systems, or providing aid to scientists and other users in the application of computational biology, modeling, analysis, or visualization techniques.

Strategy 3

Develop and refine PBIN’s operations and collaborative governance

Establish mechanisms for regular communication to partners, steering committee members, and other affiliates to keep them up to date on PBIN’s meetings and project status.
Establish a schedule of steering committee meetings and a list of issues to be taken up.
Prepare an operations and staffing plan that includes adequate support to ensure PBIN meets partner needs and customer expectations.

Strategy 4

Conduct systematic outreach, education, and communication to all partners, affiliates, contributors, and users.

Establish a defined PBIN geographical scope as tropical and subtropical Pacific Islands and surrounding marine ecosystems.
Prepare an inventory of key data sources to be sought out for inclusion in PBIN,
Conduct an assessment of the prospective user needs and wants.
Identify and recruit other potential partners.
Develop fact sheets, flyers, announcements, road shows, and other outreach mechanisms.
Develop specific mechanisms for facilitating children’s access to data and other information products.
Develop educational tools, exercises, and tutorials to help students at all levels gain an understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem conservation, biocomplexity and biological informatics.
Establish specific partnerships to enable teachers and students to work with staff on curricula and various components as an educational or training opportunity.

X. Current Partners

This strategic plan is formed by the following partners. Future partners will be added by agreement of the Steering Committee.

U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center (PIERC)
US Department of Agriculture Institute of Pacific Island Forestry (USDA/FS/IPIF)
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum (BM)
Hawaii Natural Heritage Program (HINHP)
The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
National Park Service (NPS)
Hawaii State Department of Land and Natural Resources (DL&NR)
Maui High Performance Computer Center (MHPCC)
National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII)

^[1] At the conclusion of the strategic planning meetings, participating partners identified the following future tasks, some of which will need discussion by the steering committee:

Developing explicit budget criteria and processes for soliciting, reviewing, and funding projects
Development and implementation of pilot projects on invasive species.
Developing a 6-month to 1-year plan of actions.
Organizing working groups on specific topics.
Developing contract language for data providers.
Organizing the plan into phases and milestones.

^[2]In their review of NBII, The President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) (1998) challenged the NBII to continue to develop content while dramatically improving the system’s analytic and synthetic capabilities. This required that NBII accept a more active role in scientific advancement and decision-making. To facilitate this additional role, they recommended that regional nodes be established within the NBII operating structure to enable it to be responsive to the needs of users. They envisioned a 40 million dollar program based upon five regional nodes.Even as the national system began to evolve, key individuals in Hawaii recognized the need for a more specific conservation information system for Hawaii and the Pacific. The system would try to solve problems unique to the Pacific Islands and would provide a critically needed information infrastructure for the region. It was further recognized that because of limited resources for addressing natural resource issues and the already collaborative nature of conservation efforts in Hawaii, such an approach had a high potential for success. Thus, the NBII and Hawaiian initiatives were born individually but converged as the benefits of consolidating efforts became obvious. While the intended scope for the node includes general biological resource issues relevant to tropical and sub tropical islands, it was decided that an initial focus should be on what is perceived to be the most important issue currently confronting islands today: invasive species.

^[3]It is important to note that NBII’s focus is not on “science” per se – but on providing data or other information relevant to science, education and decision-making; and providing technical solutions or services that enable these activities to flourish. Because of rapid changes in information technology and high expectations for the program, the NBII has selected an approach based upon rapid prototyping, that is, bringing up products quickly as prototypes and then adjusting them as needed. This hastens the creation of products, and allows partners to keep abreast of the rapid changes in technology. The expectation is to quickly develop products with good content (information or data) that provide valuable services.

^[4] Institutional “partners” are those agencies and organizations that have signed a specific MOI with PBIN agreeing to contribute information or services.

^[5] The information, data, and analytic tools that are contained in PBIN, form the heart of the node. It is critical that rapid progress be made in acquiring content to ensure utility to users. PBIN will strive to be comprehensive in its coverage of relevant data for the region. While providing access to data is critical to the mission of PBIN it is also incumbent that useful analytic tools be provided to allow the data to be analyzed, modeled, or synthesized so that new knowledge can be generated and decision making more easily and reliably informed. This strategic goal involves building the technical information infrastructure for the Pacific Basin consistent with national and international systems, building upon the existing information infrastructure in the Hawaiian Islands, linking to and/or improving the infrastructure of other Pacific Basin partners, and setting standards and nomenclature for operations of the node. Standards are critical for enabling not only technology by also software interoperability. Early decisions to use the World Wide Web have removed further need to consider hard ware or software standards. This goal will address data and content standards

^[6] PBIN is not meant to be a flat or static system nor is it meant to evolve into an enterprise that requires vast amounts of organizational resources. Nonetheless, PBIN will strive to provide critical information-related services to partners, contributors, and users.

^[7] The software (including data base management, operating systems and application software) selected to implement the PBIN will be selected so as to meet the needs of and be consist with the NBII, PBIN partners and affiliates.

^[8] To accomplish this, PBIN will conduct standards workshops to gain support for a more standardized approach for data collection and storage. Efforts will be focused on using existing standards, the creation of metadata, and some FGDC metadata profile and Document Type Definitions, and style sheets for XML applications. Vocabulary for content including definitions and keywords will be developed or implemented consistent with NBII standards. Conduct an inventory of data and information in the region and implement a strategy to gain access to those resources.

^[9] One common element that is critical for research and communication in biological resources management is the correct or agreed upon name of organisms. It is important for system users to have access to data or services to aid in the identification (naming) of organism(s) in order to allow for research or development of conservation strategies.

June 27, 2002

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