The DFG-funded project MoveBank Virtual Research Environment (MoveVRE) complements the running MoveBank project that started in 2007 to develop a comprehensive e-science infrastructure to store, manage, analyze, and share animal tracking data (www.movebank.org).

MoveVRE expands MoveBank with web-based collaborative tools, definition of data and metadata standards, and long-term data preservation. In addition, advanced geovisualization tools are adapted and developed through a synergistic collaboration with the Viamod project (funded by DFG grant SPP 1335). MoveVRE will be carried out by an interdisciplinary team, combining knowledge from librarians, biologists, and computer scientists. The goal of MoveVRE is to offer to the community of biodiversity an advanced e-infrastructure to face the growing research challenges that animal movement ecologists are called to address.

Ultimately, the project will provide infrastructure development that could potentially serve a wide scientific audience in other disciplines, and with little specific adaptation facilitate virtual collaboration and promote the use of long-term data archives.

Major goals of the project MoveVRE are to

• Build a data repository for datasets of animal tracking data. Datasets uploaded in the repository will be searchable, persistently stored and receive a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to make them persistently citable. The DOI enables a proper and enduring linkage between the dataset and the publication that is based on it.
• Create collaborative tools to enable researcher collaboration independent of time, location and affiliation. In order to work together, researchers need to be able to share and create documents collectively. Registered researchers will have the opportunity to create a personal profile, build interactive pages for specific research studies, and contribute to discussion forums.
• Visualize animal movement data in a unique application. The visualization program will allow researchers to interactively view the attributes of their tracking datasets and link their data to external environmental data, thus providing a novel way to analyze complex geospatial relationships and develop new hypotheses.

 Project partners:

• Library of the University of Konstanz
  
• Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
• Computer Center of the University of Konstanz
• Chair of Information Processing of the University of Konstanz

Project period:

expected 01.10.2010 - 30.09.2012

Funded by:

German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG)

Contact:

Petra Hätscher, email, phone +49 7531 88-2800

Sarah Davidson, email, phone +49 7732 150-154