AIMS

RDA/IGAD Webinar Series: ‘The BonaRes Repository: Recent developments in quality assurance and citation strategies of diverse agricultural research data’

As part of The Research Data Alliance (RDA) Interest Group on Agricultural Data (IGAD) meeting focusing on IGAD/RDA : Sharing Experiences and Creating Digital Dialogues, Nikolai Svoboda and Carsten Hoffmann, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) presented a webinar during the ‘Europe/Asia’ group of presentations on May 27. 

The webinar focused on ‘The BonaRes Repository: Recent developments in quality assurance and citation strategies of diverse agricultural research data.’ The German research initiative BonaRes (“Soil as a sustainable resource for the bioeconomy”, financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF) was launched in 2015 with a duration of 9 years and perpetuation envisaged. BonaRes includes 16 collaborative soil research projects and, additionally, the BonaRes Centre. Research data from the scientific community and its corresponding metadata (mostly with agricultural and soil background) are curated by the BonaRes Data Centre and provided for free reuse in the BonaRes Repository. The BonaRes Data Centre provides data curation services (e.g. personal support and metadata review) for scientists and tools from data submission to metadata description and publication following the FAIR principles. Due to the high diversity of agricultural data individually tailored strategies were developed to increase data quality and make them citable. The focus in this contribution is on the data workflow, which was developed together with the scientific community. This includes data quality and publication measures to ensure availability and citeability and foster scientific reusability. 

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) Interest Group on Agricultural Data (IGAD) meeting was set to be held in Rome (Italy) in April 2020 but instead, took place as a virtual meeting from May 25 to 28.  The virtual meeting provided an online platform to continue to build upon collaborations, knowledge sharing and developing innovations with activities including panel sessions, group discussions and presentations.

Authors:

  • Nikolai Svoboda

    Dr. Nikolai Svoboda

    Academic education and degree
    01/1999 – 01/2006 Study of Physical Geography, Department of Geography, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel (CAU); Minors: Landscape Development, Soil Sciences Study of Agriculture, Institute of Crop Science and Plant Breeding,

    11/2006 – 09/2010 Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel (CAU)

    Scientific degrees
    02/2006 01/2006 Diploma in Physical Geography, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel (CAU) Doctor of Agriculture, Faculty of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel (CAU)

    Career since final degree
    11/2010 – 10/2015 Scientific assistant: BMBF project NaLaMa-nT, ZALF Müncheberg
    Since 11/2015 Research scientist and coordinator: BMBF project BonaRes (www.bonares.de), ZALF Müncheberg

    Ten most important research contributions (publications, software, data sets or similar)

    Gärtner, P., Svoboda, N., Kühnert, T., Zoarder, M. A. M., Heinrich, U. (2017) The BonaRes Metadata Schema. DOI: 10.20387/BonaRes-5PGG-8YRP

    Grosse, M., Hoffmann, C., Specka, X., Svoboda, N., (2019) ‘Managing long-term experiment data: a repository for soil and agricultural research’ chapter of: Long-term Farming Systems Research: Ensuring Food Security in Changing Climate, Published by Academic Press

    Specka, X., Gärtner, P., Hoffmann, C., Svoboda, N., Stecker, M., Einspanier, U., Senkler, K., Zoarder, M. A. M., Heinrich, U. (2019) The BonaRes metadata schema for geospatial soil-agricultural research data - merging INSPIRE and DataCite metadata schemes. Computers & Geosciences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2019.07.005

    Specka, X., Gärtner, P., & Svoboda, N. (2019). Semantic mapping of the BonaRes metadata schema to INSPIRE and DataCite [Data set]. BonaRes Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.20387/BONARES-3E47-R97N

    Stein, S., Eberhardt, E., Grosse, M., Helming, K., Hierold, W., Hoffmann, C., Kühnert, T., Ließ, M., Russel, D.J., Schulz, S., Specka, X., Svoboda, N., Zoarder, M.A.M., Heinrich, U. (2019). Report on available soil data for German agricultural areas (2018). BonaRes Centre. https://doi.org/10.20387/BONARES-CD4Q-1PEM

    Hoffmann, C., Schulz, S., Eberhardt, E., Grosse, M., Daedlow, K., Russell, D. J., Kühnert, T., Stein, S., Zoarder, M., Specka, X., Svoboda, N., Heinrich, U. (2018). Overview of relevant standards for the BonaRes-Program. BonaRes Centre for Soil Research. https://doi.org/10.20387/BONARES-9D25-0D93

    Gärtner, P., Svoboda, N., Kühnert, T., Zoarder, M. M. A., & Heinrich, U. (2017). The BonaRes Metadata Schema. BonaRes Centre. https://doi.org/10.20387/BONARES-5PGG-8YRP

    Hoffmann, C., Schulz, S., Eberhardt, E., Grosse, M., Daedlow, K., Russell, D. J., Kühnert, T., Stein, S., Zoarder, M., Specka, X., Svoboda, N., Heinrich, U. (2017). Overview of relevant standards for the BonaRes-Program. BonaRes Centre. https://doi.org/10.20387/BONARES-FK84-PCR9

    Svoboda, N., & Heinrich, U. (2017). The BonaRes Data Guideline. BonaRes Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.20387/BONARES-E1AZ-ETD7

    Svoboda, N.; Hufnagel, J.; Strer, M. (2015), 'Rainfed winter wheat cultivation in the North German Plain will be limited under climate change until 2070', 'Environmental Sciences Europe'

    Riediger, J., Breckling, B., Svoboda, N., Schröder, W. (2015), ‘Modelling regional variability of irrigation requirements due to climate change in Northern Germany’, Science of The Total Environment, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.09.043

    Svoboda, N.; Taube, F.; Kluß, C.; Wienforth, B.; Sieling, K.; Hasler, M.; Kage, H.; Ohl, S.; Hartung, E.; Herrmann, A. (2015), 'Ecological Efficiency of Maize-Based Cropping Systems for Biogas Production', https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-015-9614-1

  • Carsten Hoffmann

    Academic education and degree
    1996 – 2003 Student of Geo-Ecology, University of Potsdam, Germany, Diploma
    Scientific degrees
    2004 –2009 PhD in Geo-Ecology, University of Potsdam

    Career since final degree
    05/2009-11/2012 PostDoc in the BMBF project INKA BB – Climatic adaption strategies – Wind Erosion, ZALF Müncheberg
    12/2012-06/2013 PostDoc fellow (DAAD), Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, Synthesis of grassland ecosystem functions
    07/2013-11/2015 PostDoc in the SAW project “Landscales”, ZALF Müncheberg, Distribution of soil erosion in small water body catchments
    since 12/2015 Senior scientist in the BMBF project BonaRes Data Centre, ZALF Müncheberg, Soil-agricultural research data management, data standards

    ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6457-4853

    Important research contributions (publications, data sets)

    [1] Hoffmann, C., Schulz, S., Eberhardt, E., Grosse, M., Stein, S., Specka, X., Svoboda, N., Heinrich, U. (2020) Data Standards for Soil- and Agricultural Research, BonaRes Series 12. BonaRes Data Centre. doi.org/10.20387/BonaRes-ARM4-66M2

    [2] Thi H.T., Bellingrath-Kimura, S.D., Hoffmann, C., Barkusky, D. (in press) Effect of long-term fertiliser regimes and weather on spring barley yields in sandy soil in North-East Germany. Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science. doi.org/10.1080/03650340.2019.1697436

    [3] Grosse, M., Hoffmann, C., Specka, X., Svoboda, N., (in press) ‘Managing long-term experiment data: a repository for soil and agricultural research’ chapter of: Long-term Farming Systems Research: Ensuring Food Security in Changing Climate, Published by Academic Press

    [4] Specka, X., Gärtner, P., Hoffmann, C., Svoboda, N., Stecker, M., Einspanier, U., Senkler, K., Zoarder, M. A. M., Heinrich, U. (2019) The BonaRes metadata schema for geospatial soil-agricultural research data - merging INSPIRE and DataCite metadata schemes. Computers & Geosciences 132, 33-41.

    [5] Leue, M., Hoffmann, C., Hierold, W., Sommer, M. (2019): In-situ multi-sensor characterization of soil cores along an erosion-deposition gradient. Catena 182

    [6] Stein, S., Eberhardt, E., Grosse, M., Helming, K., Hierold, W., Hoffmann, C., Kühnert, T., Ließ, M., Russell, D. J., Schulz, S., Specka, X., Svoboda, N., Zoarder, M. A. M., Heinrich, U. (2019) Report on available soil data for German agricultural areas (2018). BonaRes Series 7. BonaRes Data Centre. doi.org/10.20387/bonares-cd4q-1pem

    [7] Hoffmann, C., Funk, R. (2018): Dust measurements in Inner Mongolian grasslands (data publication). Open Research Data Portal. DOI: 10.4228/ZALF.DK.54

    [8] Nitzsche, K.N., Kaiser, M., Premke, K. Gessler, A. Ellerbrock, R.H., Hoffmann, C., Kleeberg, A., Kayler, Z.E. (2017): Organic matter distribution and retention along transects from hilltop to kettle hole within an agricultural landscape. Biogeochemistry 136 (1), 47-70

    [9] Hoffmann, C., Giese, M., Dickhoefer, U., Wan, H.W., Bai, Y.F., Steffens, M., Butterbach-Bahl, K., Han, X.G. (2016): Effects of grazing and climate variability on grassland ecosystem functions in Inner Mongolia: Synthesis of a 6-year grazing experiment. Journal of Arid Environments 135, 50-63

    [10] Giese, M., Brueck, H., Gao, Y. Z., Lin, S., Steffens, M., Kögel-Knabner, I., Glindemann, T., Susenbeth, A., Taube, F., Butterbach-Bahl, K., Zheng, X. H., Hoffmann, C., Bai, Y. F., Han, X. G. (2013) N balance and cycling of Inner Mongolia typical steppe: a comprehensive case study of grazing effects. Ecological Monographs 83, 2, 195-219.