Open Polar: a new freely search service of publications and research data of Polar Regions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamer Abu-Alam ◽  
Karl Magnus Nilsen ◽  
Obiajulu Odu ◽  
Leif Longva ◽  
Per Pippin Aspaas
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Research Data ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Search Service ◽  
Norwegian Polar Institute ◽  
Under Construction ◽  
Access To Data ◽  
Beta Version

<p>Research data plays a key role in monitoring and predicting any natural phenomena, including changes in the Polar Regions. The limited access to data restricts the ability of researchers to monitor, predict and model environmental changes and their socio-economic repercussions. In a recent survey of 113 major polar research institutions, we found out that an estimated 60% of the existing polar research data is unfindable through common search engines and can only be accessed through institutional webpages. In social science and indigenous knowledge, this findability gap is even higher, approximately 84% of the total existing data. This raises an awareness sign and the call for the need of the scientific community to collect information on the global output of research data and publications related to the Polar Regions and present it in a homogenous, seamless database.</p><p>In this contribution, we present a new, open access discovery service, Open Polar, with the purpose of rendering polar research more visible and retrievable to the research community as well as to the interested public, teachers, students and decision-makers. The new service is currently under construction and will be hosted by UiT The Arctic University of Norway in close collaboration with the Norwegian Polar Institute and other international partners. The beta version of the Open Polar was made available in February 2021. We welcome comments and suggestions from the scientific community to the beta version, while we plan to launch the stable production version of the service by summer 2021. The beta version of the service can already be tested at the URL: www.openpolar.no</p>

scholarly journals All the world’s polar research data in one place

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamer Abu-Alam
Keyword(s):  
Research Data ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Discovery Service ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Norwegian Polar Institute ◽  
Under Construction

Data from the Polar Regions are of critical importance to modern research. Regardless of their disciplinary and institutional affiliations, researchers rely heavily on the comparison of existing data with new data sets to assess changes that are taking effect. In turn, knowledge based on as broad and comprehensive a selection of polar data sets as possible is used to inform politicians and decision makers. Although individual researchers and their institutions are aware of the importance of making collected data openly available through institutional websites, the infrastructures that are used for these purposes at many institutions, are often poorly interoperable, and therefore make valuable data difficult to find and reuse. In a recent survey of 113 major polar data providers, we found that an estimated 60% of the existing polar research data is unfindable through common search engines and can only be accessed through an institutional webpage. This findability gap limits the ability of researchers to establish robust models by which changes in the polar regions can be predicted. In this contribution, we present a new, free-to-use discovery service covering the global output of openly accessible polar research data and publications, with the purpose of rendering polar research more visible and retrievable to the research community as well as to the interested public, teachers and students and public services. The new service is currently under construction and will be hosted by UiT The Arctic University of Norway in close collaboration with the Norwegian Polar Institute.

scholarly journals Open Arctic Research Index: Final report and recommendations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamer S. Abu-Alam
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
End Users ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Management Service ◽  
Scale Management

Access research data and research documents (e.g. publications) and make it more visible and findable through the internet is coming up as one of the major challenges for future development of the next generation of Digital Libraries. This challenge becomes more complicated when data producers (e.g. research institutes) are not aware by the needs of the scientific community for visibility and findability of their data or when the data producers lack the technology or the motivation to make their data available online.Although the Open Arctic Research Index pilot project focused only on the open-access research data and the open-access research documents published on Polar regions, the OpenARI found 60% of these open-access records are unfindable through searchable platforms outside the institutional webpage itself. This raises an awareness sign of the need of the scientific community to harvest the metadata of these open-access records in a homogenous, seamless database and making this database available to researchers, students and publics through one search platform. At present, neither Google Scholar nor any other search platform provide this service.Based on the fact that around 60% of the open-access polar records are unfindable through one search platform, we strongly suggest launching a full-scale management service at the University of Tromsø – the Arctic University of Norway (UiT). This new service will be built on existing experiences from High North Research Documents (i.e. an existing service at the UiT). OpenARI has concluded fifteen needs that are required for the full-scale management model. In addition to the main service (i.e. make open-access polar records more visible and findable through one search platform), we suggest to add three new services: 1) hosting of original data from the Polar regions; 2) creating a research platform; 3) creating an education platform. A new process including four stages of filtration is suggested in order to reduce the time and the overhead costs of using the UiT’s server. End-users will be able to perform search using a map. In addition to the classical way of presenting the results of a search, the end-users will be able to see the search results on a map and/or as a timeline.

Monitoring Svalbard’s environment and cultural heritage through citizen science by expedition cruises

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Poulsen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Science Program ◽  
Cruise Ship ◽  
Cruise Ships

<p><strong>Monitoring Svalbard’s environment and cultural heritage through citizen science by expedition cruises</strong></p><p>Michael K. Poulsen1, Lisbeth Iversen2, Ted Cheeseman3, Børge Damsgård4, Verena Meraldi5, Naja Elisabeth Mikkelsen6, Zdenka Sokolíčková7, Kai Sørensen8, Agnieszka Tatarek9, Penelope Wagner10, Stein Sandven2, and Finn Danielsen1</p><p>1NORDECO, 2NERSC, 3PCSC, 4UNIS, 5Hurtigruten, 6GEUS, 7University of Oslo, 8NIVA, 9IOPAN, 10MET Norway</p><p><strong>Why expedition cruise monitoring is important for Svalbard. </strong>The Arctic environment  is changing fast, largely due to increasing temperatures and human activities. The continuous areas of wilderness and the cultural heritage sites in Svalbard need to be managed based on a solid understanding.</p><p>The natural environment of Svalbard is rich compared to other polar regions. Historical remains are plentiful. The Svalbard Environmental Protection Act aims at regulating hunting, fishing, industrial activities, mining, commerce and tourism. Expedition cruises regularly reach otherwise rarely visited places.</p><p><strong>Steps taken to improve environmental monitoring. </strong>A workshop for enhancing the environmental monitoring efforts of expedition cruise ships was held in Longyearbyen in 2019, facilitated by the INTAROS project and the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators  (https://intaros.nersc.no/content/cruise-expedition-monitoring-workshop) with representatives of cruise operators, citizen science programs, local government and scientists. They agreed on a pilot assessment of monitoring programs during 2019.</p><p><strong>Results show the importance of cruise ship observations. </strong>The provisional findings of the pilot assessment suggest thatexpedition cruises go almost everywhere around Svalbard and gather significant and relevant data on the environment, contributing for example to an improved understanding of thestatus and distribution of wildlife. Observations are often documented with photographs. More than 150 persons contributed observations during 2019 to eBird and Happywhale. iNaturalist, not part of the pilot assessment, also received many contributions. The pilot assessment was unable to establish a useful citizen science program for testing monitoring of cultural remains.</p><p><strong>Conclusions relevant for monitoring and environmental management. </strong>Cruise ships collect environmental data that are valuable for the scientific community and for public decision-makers. The Governor of Svalbard isresponsible for environmental management in Svalbard. Data on the environment and on cultural remains from expedition cruises can be useful for the Governor’s office. Improved communication between citizen science programs and those responsible for environmental management decisions is likely to increase the quantity of relevant information that reaches public decision makers.</p><p><strong>Recommendations for improving the use of cruise ship observations and monitoring.</strong></p><ul><li>1) All cruise expedition ships should be equipped with tablets containing the apps for the same small selection of citizen scienceprograms so that they can easily upload records.</li> <li>2) Evaluation of data that can be created and how such data can contribute to monitoring programs, to ensure that data is made readily available in a form that is useful for institutions responsible for planning and improving environmental management.</li> <li>3) Clear lines of communication between citizen science program participants, citizen science program organizers, the scientific community and decision makers should be further developed.</li> <li>4) Developing expedition cruise monitoring is of high priority in Svalbard, but is also highly relevant to other polar regions.</li> <li>5) Further work is necessary to fully understand the feasibility and potential of coordinated expedition cruise operator based environmental observing in the Arctic.</li> </ul>

scholarly journals Open Polar – a global open access portal to research on the polar regions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leif Longva ◽  
Tamer Abu Alam ◽  
Per Pippin Aspaas ◽  
Noortje Dijkstra ◽  
Lars Figenschou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Research Data ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Research Activities

Research activities and research output, in general, have increased, and keep increasing vastly, and so too is research on the polar regions including Svalbard in the Arctic. Major commercial publishers have built subscription-based services which present research literature for a fee. As Open Science and open access to literature and data is gaining momentum, there is a distinct need for powerful discovery tools that can harvest and present research literature and datasets in open access form - free of charge. Moreover, sharing of underlying data in open access form is becoming the new norm. So, to integrate research papers and datasets in the same search, helps speed up the discovery processes as well as fostering the transparency of research, and minimize duplication of fieldwork and experiments. Open Polar (https://openpolar.no/) is developed by UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and is a free to use discovery tool for open access publications and research data specifically targeting research output on the polar regions, across all subject areas, and irrespective of where the research originates. Through a carefully designed algorithm, Open Polar is extracting metadata (including URL to the landing page of the full text) from more than 4600 sources worldwide and making these accessible through a user-friendly search service - including an option to search via geolocations on a map, and with systematic search features. The algorithm used picks up relevant research located in the most remote content providers and sources. Thus, searching in Open Polar will result in records purely of relevance to the polar regions. In this contribution, we will present the many advantageous features of Open Polar, and show how Open Polar is supporting Open Science and research integrity-enhancing procedures, by enabling search and access to research data as well as research papers.

scholarly journals Open Polar: a discovery service covering the global output of openly accessible polar research data and publications

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamer S. Abu-Alam ◽  
Per Pippin Aspaas ◽  
Leif Longva Longva ◽  
Karl Magnus Nilsen ◽  
Obiajulu Odu
Keyword(s):  
End Users ◽  
Research Data ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Discovery Service ◽  
Scholarly Data ◽  
Ongoing Project ◽  
Existing Data

Data from the Polar Regions are of critical importance to modern polar research. Regardless of their disciplinary and institutional affiliations, researchers rely heavily on the comparison of existing data with new data sets to assess changes that are taking effect. However, in a recent survey of 113 major polar data providers, we found that an estimated 60% of the existing polar research data is unfindable through common search engines and can only be accessed through institutional webpages. Moreover, a study by Johnson et al. (2019) showed that in social science and indigenous knowledge, the findability gap is around 84%. This results in an awareness of the need of the scientific community to harvest different metadata related to the Polar Regions and collect these in a homogenous, seamless database and making this database available to researchers, students and the public through one search platform.This contribution describes the progress in an ongoing project, Open Polar (https://site.uit.no/open-polar/) started in 2019 at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. The project aims to collect metadata about all the open-access scholarly data and documents related to the Polar Regions in a homogenous and seamless database. The suggested service will include three parts: 1) harvesting metadata; 2) enriching and filtrating of the harvested metadata relevant to Polar Regions; and 3) making the collected records available and searchable to the end-users through an interactive user interface. The service will help to make the polar related research data and documents more visible and searchable to the end-users and thereby reducing the findability gap.

scholarly journals Open Polar

Ravnetrykk ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamer Abu-Alam
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Research Data ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Dublin Core ◽  
Standard Data ◽  
Advanced Search ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Geo Database

Data from the Polar Regions are of critical importance to modern research and decision makers. Regardless of their disciplinary and institutional affiliations, researchers rely heavily on the comparison of existing data with new data sets to assess changes that are taking effect. However, in a recent survey of 113 major polar data providers, we found that an estimated 60% of the existing polar research data is unfindable through common search engines and can only be accessed through institutional webpages. This raises an awareness sign of the need of the scientific community to harvest different metadata related to the Polar Regions and collect it in a homogenous, seamless database and making this database available to researchers, students and publics through one search platform. This contribution describes the progress in an ongoing project, Open Polar, started in 2019 at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. The project aims to collect metadata about all the open-access research data, articles and other scholarly documents related to the Polar Regions in a homogenous and seamless database. During the first six months of the project, the beta version of the user-interface was established, with a search by map and an advanced search function. An extensive geo-database that includes thousands of polar locations and their geographic information was collected from different sources. The geo-database together with a list of keywords (i.e. on sources, indigenous peoples, languages and other polar-related keywords) will be used in the filtration process. A Reference Board was formed, and the first board meeting took place in April 2020. The geographic definition of “Polar Regions” was defined in order to include most of the current geographic definitions of “Arctic”. The project is still facing some challenges that include for example integration with non-standard data sources who do not use Dublin Core Metadata schema, or are not harvestable through the Open Access Initiative’s standard protocol for harvesting (OAI-PMH).

Is there anything natural about the polar?

Polar Record ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 326-329
Author(s):  
Justiina Dahl ◽  
Peder Roberts ◽  
Lize-Marié van der Watt
Keyword(s):  
Marine Mammals ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
International Geophysical Year ◽  
Alpine Regions ◽  
Polar Research Institute ◽  
Antarctic Research ◽  
Norwegian Polar Institute ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Research Institute

AbstractAre similarities of temperature, snow and ice cover, and (certain) marine mammals sufficient to warrant both polar regions being considered a single object of study or governance? We argue that their treatment as a unit is an invitation to examine the motivations behind the choice to be polar rather than Arctic or Antarctic. For individuals such as James Clerk Ross or Roald Amundsen, logistical requirements and analogous goals facilitated careers spanning both the Arctic and the Antarctic. This trend continued through the 20th century as individual scientists studying phenomena such as glaciers, sea ice, or aurora defined their research as “polar” in nature. Organisations such as the Scott Polar Research Institute and Norwegian Polar Institute could draw on traditions of national exploration in both polar regions, while the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg gained its southern mandate with the importance of the International Geophysical Year. By comparison, neither the Arctic Institute in Copenhagen nor the Argentine Antarctic Institute felt any need to become polar. The creation of polar identity is ultimately a matter of geopolitics, of the value states see in instruments and symbols that speak to polar rather than Arctic or Antarctic interests. In cases such as Finland’s icebreaker industry, a technological capability justified Antarctic interest even without any national research tradition. We conclude by asking whether there is anything more natural about the polar regions than there is about the concept of a “tripolar” world in which the high alpine regions form a natural unit along with the Arctic and Antarctic.

scholarly journals N2O dynamics in the western Arctic Ocean during the summer of 2017

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jang-Mu Heo ◽  
Seong-Su Kim ◽  
Sung-Ho Kang ◽  
Eun Jin Yang ◽  
Ki-Tae Park ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Chukchi Sea ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Northern Region ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Western Arctic Ocean ◽  
Deep Layers ◽  
Western Arctic

AbstractThe western Arctic Ocean (WAO) has experienced increased heat transport into the region, sea-ice reduction, and changes to the WAO nitrous oxide (N2O) cycles from greenhouse gases. We investigated WAO N2O dynamics through an intensive and precise N2O survey during the open-water season of summer 2017. The effects of physical processes (i.e., solubility and advection) were dominant in both the surface (0–50 m) and deep layers (200–2200 m) of the northern Chukchi Sea with an under-saturation of N2O. By contrast, both the surface layer (0–50 m) of the southern Chukchi Sea and the intermediate (50–200 m) layer of the northern Chukchi Sea were significantly influenced by biogeochemically derived N2O production (i.e., through nitrification), with N2O over-saturation. During summer 2017, the southern region acted as a source of atmospheric N2O (mean: + 2.3 ± 2.7 μmol N2O m−2 day−1), whereas the northern region acted as a sink (mean − 1.3 ± 1.5 μmol N2O m−2 day−1). If Arctic environmental changes continue to accelerate and consequently drive the productivity of the Arctic Ocean, the WAO may become a N2O “hot spot”, and therefore, a key region requiring continued observations to both understand N2O dynamics and possibly predict their future changes.

German labour market data – Data provision and access for the international scientific community

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-333
Author(s):  
Dana Müller ◽  
Stefanie Wolter
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Market Research ◽  
Research Data ◽  
International Scientific Community ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Data Centre ◽  
Integrated Employment ◽  
Data Provision

AbstractThe Research Data Centre at the Institute for Employment Research (RDC-IAB) has been offering high-quality administrative and survey data on the German labour market for 15 years and has become one of the most important locations worldwide for researchers interested in data for labour market research. This article provides an overview of the RDC-IAB, including its data and access modes. The article presents two datasets in more detail: the Sample of Integrated Employment Biographies, a classic dataset, and the Linked Personnel Panel, a new dataset. Finally, this article provides insights into future infrastructure and data developments.

scholarly journals Enhanced Viral Activity in the Surface Microlayer of the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 317
Author(s):  
Dolors Vaqué ◽  
Julia A. Boras ◽  
Jesús Maria Arrieta ◽  
Susana Agustí ◽  
Carlos M. Duarte ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Food Web ◽  
Physicochemical Characteristics ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Microbial Food Web ◽  
Surface Microlayer ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Nutrient Inputs ◽  
Viral Activity ◽  
The Impact

The ocean surface microlayer (SML), with physicochemical characteristics different from those of subsurface waters (SSW), results in dense and active viral and microbial communities that may favor virus–host interactions. Conversely, wind speed and/or UV radiation could adversely affect virus infection. Furthermore, in polar regions, organic and inorganic nutrient inputs from melting ice may increase microbial activity in the SML. Since the role of viruses in the microbial food web of the SML is poorly understood in polar oceans, we aimed to study the impact of viruses on prokaryotic communities in the SML and in the SSW in Arctic and Antarctic waters. We hypothesized that a higher viral activity in the SML than in the SSW in both polar systems would be observed. We measured viral and prokaryote abundances, virus-mediated mortality on prokaryotes, heterotrophic and phototrophic nanoflagellate abundance, and environmental factors. In both polar zones, we found small differences in environmental factors between the SML and the SSW. In contrast, despite the adverse effect of wind, viral and prokaryote abundances and virus-mediated mortality on prokaryotes were higher in the SML than in the SSW. As a consequence, the higher carbon flux released by lysed cells in the SML than in the SSW would increase the pool of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and be rapidly used by other prokaryotes to grow (the viral shunt). Thus, our results suggest that viral activity greatly contributes to the functioning of the microbial food web in the SML, which could influence the biogeochemical cycles of the water column.

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