Smirnova , L.,  Mergen, P.,  Groom, Q.,  De Wever, Q.,  Stoev, P.,  Penev, L.,  Peer, I.,  Runnel, V.,  Camacho Garcia, A.,  Vincent, T.,  Saarenmaa, H.,  Agosti, D. & Arvantidis, C. 2016. EU BON Deliverable 2.2 (D2.2) Data sharing tools. EU BON EU project. 86 p.

Report (published)

Biodiversity information is growing exponentially due to the expanding number of biodiversity related projects, initiatives, and networks collecting data around the world. A substantial portion of these data come from citizen science initiatives, and often differ from more "traditional" data collected by trained scientists. Mobilization and integration of data from such diverse origins is thus of major importance and is one of the key objectives of the EU BON project. Data mobilization is a broad term that includes data sharing, data publishing, and involvement of scientific and citizen communities in data generation. This report provides conceptual and practical advice for implementation of the available data sharing and data publishing tools enhanced or adopted by EU BON. The report begins with an introduction to the complex world of data, metadata, and data integration. The concepts of data sharing and data publishing are clarified. A comprehensive review of the existing tools for metadata, occurrence data, and ecological data is compiled. A detailed description of the tools, their pros and cons, is followed by recommendations on their deployment and enhancement.