The winner, Elisabeth Lundsør and co-workers, impressed the evaluation committee by the substantial effort in enabling FAIR storage of historical samling events of phytoplankton from the Inner Oslofjord. The Inner Oslofjorden Phytoplankton Database is a comprehensive database containing quantitative phytoplankton cell counts, associated metadata and available environmental data from 605 sampling events from 1896 to 2020. Although data exist, from monitoring- and research programmes, this is the first long-term phytoplankton dataset for the Norwegian coastal area that has been compiled and made publicly available in a standardised format.
The committee found the impressive task of gathering and organizing the extensive quantitative data on phytoplankton cell counts, associated metadata, and available environmental data from over 100 years of samplings is an excellent example of the possibilities that can lie hidden in a local storage unit or desk drawer. The sampling time series are essential for studying the long-term effects of human impact and climatic changes on the natural environment. Awareness and publicity about this dataset will hopefully inspire more researchers to do the same.
From the winner, Elisabeth Lundsør:
We are honored to receive this award. It was a long and tedious job collecting all the data from “boxes and drawers”, and convincing everyone that it was essential to share it. This reward greatly acknowledges that work and shows everyone how important and appreciated data sharing is!
Associated publications:
- Elisabeth Lundsør, Evy Rigmor Lømsland, Torbjørn Martin Johnsen, Anette Engesmo, Andrew Luke King, Andrè Staalstrøm, Marit Norli, Jan Magnusson, Kai Sørensen, Bente Edvardsen & Wenche Eikrem. Marine phytoplankton community data and corresponding environmental properties from eastern Norway, 1896–2020. Scientific Data (2022) 9(1):767. DOI: 10.1038/s41597-022-01869-3
- Lundsør, E., Eikrem, W., Stige, L.C., Engesmo, A., Gran-Stadniczeñko, S., Edvardsen, B. Changes in phytoplankton community structure over a century in relation to environmental factors. J. Plankton Res. (2022) 1–18. DOI: 10.1093/plankt/fbac055
For the second time, Centre for Digital Life Norway (DLN) announced the DLN FAIR data award 2022 to highlight leading examples of FAIR data management in Norwegian life science research. The nominations received for the award were from a diverse range of disciplines. DLN is very inspired to see the many cases of FAIR data management in our research environments.
About the evaluation:
The evaluation committee consisted of Korbinian Bösl (ELIXIR Norway and DLN), Kjersti Hasle Enerstvedt (Senior academic librarian, University of Bergen Library), Susanna Röblitz (Professor at Computational Biology Unit, UiB), Chidimma Phoebe Echebiri (INN), Ragna Breines (NORBIS and DLN), Anamika Chatterjee (DLN) and Marta Eide (DLN). We are particularly thankful for the external members active and thorough participation in evaluating the nominated candidates.
In order to evaluate the efforts of the FAIR data management, and not only the repository features, the committee manually evaluated the data sets as based on the FAIR-plus indicators.
About FAIR data:
FAIR data management aims to increase the reuse and impact of research data and is an important part of the Open Science initiative. FAIR principles encourage making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. This allows a wider community to use existing data and facilitate knowledge discovery. Following the principle of “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”, FAIR data should always be interoperable and reusable, but cannot always be possible to access openly (for example, patient sensitive data cannot be directly accessible, but it should be possible to know how to obtain access for specific research questions).