Proceedings of TDWG : Conference Abstract
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Conference Abstract
Canadensys and GBIF France : collaboration through the GBIF network to help launch the new Canadensys explorer
expand article infoCanadensys Network, Anne-Sophie Archambeau§, Fabien Cavière§, Jeremy Goimard, Marie-Elise Lecoq§, Carole Sinou, Anne Bruneau|
‡ Canadensys, Montréal, Canada
§ Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Paris, France
| University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada
Open Access

Abstract

With over 780 million records, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international consortium whose goal is to collect data on biodiversity and make them available, free and online, to everyone.

Canadensys (http://www.canadensys.net/) is a network of researchers, collectors, curators, information technologists, students, and educators that shares data on the occurrence and taxonomic identity of plants, animals and fungi in Canada. It is an associate participant of GBIF.

The French node of GBIF, GBIF France (http://www.gbif.fr/), among other objectives, provides and helps French data publishers to connect their data through the GBIF network. Since 2014, GBIF France's technical team has installed and configured their data portal using Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) tools.

One of the main missions of GBIF is to assist nodes in creating global and regional collaborations in order to transfer knowledge on tools and methods which help providers enhance their data and upload them into the GBIF network. To achieve this, GBIF initiated the Capacity Enhancement Support Program (CESP) (http://www.gbif.org/programme/capacity-support). The mentoring activity presented in this poster is one of the five types of activities supported by CESP.

The amount of data served through Canadensys has increased dramatically during the past years. The consequence is that its current system is not sufficiently powerful to effectively treat this increased volume of data. In order to meet this requirement, Canadensys has begun to configure and install its system based on the ALA framework. Through this CESP mentoring activity, GBIF France is helping Canadensys launch its own data portal by providing assistance on technical specifications, such as server configuration and customization.

In addition to this main objective, GBIF France and Canadensys aim to extend the ALA community and include French-speaking countries (especially in Africa and the Caribbean). In fact, projects with the aforementioned countries have already been proposed through CESP and other calls. Efforts to improve the ALA integration documentation and provide French translations are underway.

In this poster, Canadensys presents its new system and its functionalities. We also describe the collaboration between GBIF France and Canadensys and the improvements made on the documentation, which will facilitate installation of national or regional data portals in French-speaking countries.

Keywords

Atlas of Living Australia framework, Platform, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Canadensys, Capacity Enhancement Support Program

Presenting author

Marie-Élise Lecoq, Jérémy Goimard

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