Marine

Marine Scotland launches data publication portal

November 28, 2014 by Marine Scotland Communications No Comments | Category Marine Directorate general, Marine Directorate Science

Marine Scotland holds a vast amount of data on the marine and freshwater environment in Scotland and today sees the launch of a dedicated portal- http://marinedata.scotland.gov.uk – to allow users to search published data and reports. As well as making it easier to locate data and reports published by Marine Scotland, the portal also provides citation information on these datasets through the use of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs).

It does not replace but compliments Marine Scotland’s existing website where you can continue to find information on all aspects of Marine Scotland’s work.

Marine Scotland are working to make our data accessible, discoverable, (re)usable and citable through the portal, which also provides additional functionality that make our data more useful. For example, datasets are grouped and tagged making it easier to find data on similar topics. The portal also embeds social media making it easy to share and discuss our data using these tools, as well as more technical functionality like machine readable data retrieval (JSON/RDF).

Why use DOIs?

A DOI is a permanent and unique identifier – a bit like an ISBN on a book. By assigning a DOI to a dataset we make that dataset much easier to find and cite. While websites and their addresses may change, a DOI does not, meaning that when a dataset is cited using a DOI it is always discoverable in the future.

What happens next?

Initially, the focus has been on bringing the existing Scottish Marine and Freshwater Science reports online through the portal, but more content will be continually added, both reports and downloadable datasets.

Part of the portal will also be used as part of Marine Scotland’s function as the Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN) Fisheries Data Archive Centre for Scotland, making information available on fisheries surveys and other research and monitoring data collected by Marine Scotland.

Marinedata.scotland.gov.uk has been developed using open source tools. The platform allows information to be harvested from the code used to build the site. This means information about Marine Scotland’s datasets can be effectively shared much more widely, with other parts of government, open data portals, and anyone interested in using this information.

Marinedata.scotland.gov.uk will provide a single point of access to Marine Scotland’s published data, and allows everyone to explore, download, share and cite those data.

• To search for datasets and reports, you can go directly to http://marinedata.scotland.gov.uk
• You can read more about using the site, it’s organisation and how to cite information on: http://marinedata.scotland.gov.uk/~marine/about

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