The Intertidal Update - July 2024
We’re taking advantage of the long summer days up in the Northern Hemisphere to catch up on our reading and make plans for fall. Big support to our colleagues at this week’s International Seabed Authority meeting, where that body is (finally) considering a general policy around science, monitoring, and data. And congrats to everyone who helped get us to mapping 26% of the ocean floor! Who-oah, we’re a quarter of the way there!
Funding opportunities
The U.S. National Fish & Wildlife Foundation’s fisheries electronic monitoring program is open for applications until Oct 2. Projects can tackle improving data systems and grantees can be nonprofits, government agencies, or businesses.
Google.org’s Environmental Justice Data Fund is taking proposals until Aug 30 for projects that “empower communities to address past environmental harm and pave the way to a more sustainable, climate-resilient future”
What we’re reading
Ten years ago, The Belmont Forum surveyed 1283 people about their perceptions of open data and its role in environmental research. It’s one of the most thorough reports we’ve found about challenges with finding and accessing environmental data, as well as the capacity needed to support sharing data. We’d love to see The Belmont Forum repeat the survey in light of the many changes in data policy and infrastructure over the last decade - maybe a marine-focused version as part of their new Oceans call?
Right after we hit send on our last newsletter about “what makes people share data” we found this paper from the Openscapes community on the impact of organizational culture change. In keeping with their name, Openscapes makes their materials public, so if you get inspired to try this at your home organization, they have the tools to support your data stewardship journey.
The FAIR Island toolkit is designed to help field stations track research projects and their outputs, including data and publications. There’s great documentation in here and methods that could be used by Tribes, Indigenous groups, and other place-based organizations to monitor what’s being studied and how that information is shared, since there’s often a delay between initial data collection and releasing final products.
If you are also frequently asked “Have you read that octopus book?” there are at least four recent ones, both fiction and non: Other minds, Soul of an Octopus, Remarkably bright creatures, and The mountain in the sea. It’s a good time for octopus book clubs.
Finally, if you’d like to join us for a half day workshop on data licensing with Creative Commons, we’re planning one on Sep. 17 and another on Sep. 25. Official registration will come out mid-August. Let us know if you’re interested and we’ll make sure you get the announcement.
— Kate & Rachael
This month’s special thanks for the conversations and inspiration go to:
Alex Parker, Susie Theroux, Steve Diggs, Shannon Dosemagen, Corey Clatterbuck, and Mark Michelin