Comments from Jesse Ausubel on What OBIS Renewal Proposal to the Sloan Foundation Needs

Comments from Jesse Ausubel on what OBIS renewal proposal to the Sloan Foundation needs.

I have been browsing the iobis site. It is vastly improved in every way. Congratulations to everyone who contributed to the new design and implementation. My only broad criticism of is that the Homepage and every major page MUST have the CoML logo linked to the This must be implemented immediately.

There are some particular problems, as for example, inoperative links to the S African and New Zealand nodes. I am sure you have a list of such issues.

27 months ago it become clear OBIS needed a major reorganization and new plan to grow. Mark took the lead in organizing the workshop at Scripps, which produced a high-quality proposal and plan, which have been largely successful.

As discussed, I urge that the Los Banos meeting allocate a lot of time to discussing the proposal, not in the details, but in the sense of agreeing on the general strategy for re-organization of management, categories of milestones, and actual milestones. And then a plan to revise and resubmit the proposal. As we discussed, an option might be for Mark to spend a couple more days in Woods Hole in July with you and me to do this. Please also identify one more practical, careful, versatile person who will help in this regard – it finally takes quite a lot of time to get all the details right, and neither you nor Mark should have to carry out each revision and editorial detail.

You also need an interim plan for OBIS to survive (indeed maintain momentum) with no new Sloan resources until 1 November.

Some things needed:

1) RON reports

A concise, rhetoric-free 1-page status report from each of the 5 Sloan-funded RON about

--the total number of records it is now serving,

--its plans to attract more records,

--the traffic to its site and other indicators of use and interaction with the regional user community

--the ease and reliability of its link to IOBIS (ALL work supported by Sloan must be publicly available – Sloan does not support classified or hidden work – if someone wants to hide work done, they must return every penny of Sloan money)

--the status of its funding commitments other than Sloan

--its plans for long-run sustainability (I would welcome a copy of the abstract of any English-language proposal a RON has submitted for new funding support from its government or whatever)

I am sure you are asking for such a status report for Los Banos from all 10 RONs, so all I need to see are those submitted from India, New Zealand, Australia, S America, and S Africa.

2) Matching the proposal to the updated site

A key job is for the revised proposal to reflect the new version of the website. Screen shots of 5-6 key pages should be attachments to the proposal. These convey major achievements.

3) New management/organization plan and agreed milestones

The biggest challenge is to conceive the management that will reach and surpass the milestones to which you all agree in Los Banos.

Each milestone or category of milestone must have actual humans (individuals or in some case a group or committee) associated with it, for accountability. I believe from a bottom up assessment of what the new milestones are, the new organization will emerge.

As we discussed, I think the IC needs to be revamped. It is far too Anglophone, does not reflect user groups, does not have liaisons with GBIF and IODE/IOC, does not have enough people with clout. But maybe one needs to rethink the entire structure of IC and Management and Technical Committees, again by first agreeing on goals and milestones, and then asking what organization (including both OBIS Secretariat and OBIS committees/networks) will get us there.

I continue to believe the Sloan judgment 27 months ago that there needs to be at least one OBIS “Center”, a place with at least 3 warm bodies (Phoebe plus a general manager plus either a data or admin person). We want to keep the cost of this low, mindful of the need to effect a transition to non-Sloan sources of funding over the next few years.

I continue to believe that what has been lacking is not a biologist but a Manager, in particular someone experienced with management of software development, and also someone comfortable with staffing and managing committees, writing proposals, doing liaison work with users and data providers, etc. However, the key is to outline all the functions that need to be fulfilled and then figure out how many people are needed to do them and where. There will need to be a new Organization Chart.

Also, as discussed, the list of milestones in the draft proposal pp. 17-20 is in many respects excellent, but most of the milestones refer to April and May 2006. Even had the proposal been suitable for consideration for funding, the proposal should have referred only to the period after 1 July 2006, which would have been the period of the new proposal (now 1 November). Also, while these might be the categories of milestones that you and Mark use internally, there must be a separate table of Milestones that is prepared for the SSC & Sloan, consistent with the categories that the SSC has developed (commitments, partnerships, etc.).

4) Roles of Mark and Fred

I am very worried about the total demands CoML is placing on Fred. I think that you must either step back from hands-on management of OBIS or consider changing your role with the SSC. Sloan just approved a 26% increase in SSC activities, for which you, Ron, and Dick West are responsible. It is unrealistic to think you can meet the growing SSC burden and the OBIS burden as well.

Mark also needs to articulate his own role and what is required for him to carry it out. As I have said to both Fred and Mark, this proposal should outline more than Sloan will fund. Maybe OBIS needs $1.2 m of which Sloan will provide 800k. You need to understand the full needs in order to acquire them. Also to identify those which might be most easily raised from sources other than Sloan.

5) Long-term plan

As discussed, and as present in the prior 2 OBIS proposals to Sloan, there must be a strategy/options for the long-term sustainability, financial and political, of OBIS, indicating when negotiations with eg GBIF or IODE will take place, in order for the needed transition to take place.

6) Total commitments for OBIS, not just for OBIS management

There needs to be a clear, honest description of the non-Sloan commitments to OBIS, and a listing of proposals for OBIS funding now in review by funders and a listing of proposals that will soon be written and submitted. In the case, where a “proposal” might consist eg of an internal negotiation with the Chinese or Australian government, this should be stated. For governmental groups (such as ORAP in the USA), we need to have a much better picture of “What OBIS actually costs”. If it is going to cost $5m/yr globally to sustain OBIS at a useful level, we need to start to get a handle on this. Alternately, this might be estimated in FTEs. Maybe, OBIS will require about 30 FTEs globally. However assessed, we need to be able to describe to people what is involved in developing and maintaining the system.

7) Usage and Users

There need to be traffic and usage reports about the IOBIS site.

In lieu of Appendix D showing the ESRI Exec Summary, there ought to be 1-2 pages either in the main proposal or as Appendix about the several kinds of interaction with Users that have occurred over the past 2 years and that are planned over the next 2 years in order to keep the site/system always tuned to evolving User needs. There needs to be Users more influentially integrated into the leadership (through a reorganized IC or whatever).

8) Relations to CoML

There need to be brief status reports about the relation of OBIS to the 14 field projects, HMAP, and FMAP. These might be 1-2 sentences, or a table, listing Liaison with each project, how many records entered, etc And there needs to be a “bottom line” about what still needs to be done in order for OBIS to be able to integrate the data streams that will emerge from the CoML research over the next 3-4 years.

There needs to be a brief report and plan about OBIS’s activities in E&O. This is an area that needs serious, fundamental thinking, based on the present and expected assets.

9) KUU

The proposal should incorporate the KUU framework. OBIS has proven a powerful tool for identifying, indeed quantifying, the Unknown. Mark shows this very well in his presentations.

10) Data acquistion

There needs to be information about major challenges in data acquisition aside from the Field Projects, e.g., with regard to fisheries data, museum collections, invasive species, or Soviet data sets. This was a big theme in prior proposals but now seems underattended in the new draft.

11) 2010 Census

Let’s reserve use of the word “Census” only for the full 2010 Census of Marine Life. OBIS, rather, and very importantly, has taken on the responsibility to produce for the CoML the definitive marine species list, likely to exceed 200,000, for the 2010 Census. The proposal should highlight OBIS’ goal to complete the list, have at least one record for every species, to partner with the nascent Encyclopedia of Life (and Aquaspecies) to have a Species Page (w Biographical info and Range) on every species, links to genetic identifiers for a good fraction, and links to information on where a specimen of the species is stored. This by itself will be an immense contribution, and should be front-and-center. A very clear statement about this goal will greatly aid, I believe, the chance for OBIS to be fully adopted by GBIF and IODE (and FAO) and sustained indefinitely.

12) OBIS Goals and Missions

Appendix A on OBIS Goals and Missions is dated and needs to be replaced by appropriately edited material from the updated Website, reviewed and approved in Los Banos.

13) How to show accountability going forward

The main proposal should minimize use of acronyms and omit in most cases mention of individuals. However, Appendices should be crystal clear about what individuals or groups are responsible/accountable for each major task/milestone going forward. In the Appendices there should be a very clear list of tasks (Quality Control, Data Acquisition, Long-Term Sustainability, Partnerships, whatever) and for each one there should a human and/or group (eg. Quality Control: Mark Costello & Editorial Board). One of the most important functions of the Los Banos meeting must be to identify jobs with people, and get commitments from the people.

14) “Development” and “Research”

There needs to be separation of discussion of “Research” directed at Development of OBIS from “Research” such as the new Science reefs paper that draws on OBIS. Let’s call the first Development and the second Research.

15) Tools to which OBIS points

There needs to be clarity that OBIS will not itself produce or defend modeling tools such as KGS Mapper but rather simply identify potentially useful tools that users apply at their own risk. It will be death to OBIS if OBIS per se becomes accountable for results produced by models. One law suit or regulatory proceeding would eviscerate OBIS. This must be avoided. The fiasco with KGS Mapper at the CORE Demo in Wash DC in Jan 2006 should have forever convinced you of the strategy here.

16) Principle per style of software

OBIS must minimize use of custom software, which will inevitably become hard to service. It must pursue a strategy of using commercially available tools/providers and open source tools and code, and also documenting its own code and making it transparent. The whole system cannot depend on Phoebe. There has to be a statement of principle in this regard.

17) Principle per Open Content and per commercial developers

OBIS should adhere to the principles of the Open Content Alliance (“building a digital archive of global content for universal access”) and at the same time encouraging a secondary industry of private enterprises (such as ESRI) that can build custom applications on top of OBIS data for users who can pay for such services. There should be a statement of principle along these lines.

18) Functional budget

The budget should estimate functional allocations: of the 800k, roughly how much goes for major functions such as OBIS management, data acquisition, quality control, or whatever 4-6 major categories you might want to choose. It should be clear that you and Mark have thoughtfully allocated the budget to the priority functions.

I attach the general CoML guidelines I have been distributing.

Reading the proposal again this morning, I find many important facts and tactical statements, but finally composition is explanation, and we do not have a composition, in large part because the most fundamental management issues are not sorted out. Please do begin with figuring out what actually needs to be done, how it could best get done, and what it will cost. Then we can move forward, as we did two years ago.

Thanks-

Jesse

CoML Field Project Proposal Guidelines (for Sloan Foundation proposals)

1) Main body of proposal must be double-spaced, 12 point type, 1-inch margins, and must not exceed 20 pages. Page limit is inflexible.

2) Appendices can have additional detail but should not exceed an additional 30 pages in total, including budgets, cvs, schedules, letters of support, and so on.

3) No CV may exceed 2 pages.

4) Matching financial contributions must be identified and an overall financial plan for the whole effort be included.

5) Budget should cover calendar years.

6) Overhead cannot exceed 15%. If there is a "pass-through," there must not be double

overhead (the institution should not charge 15% on money it passes through to another institution).

7) The proposal must explicitly state expected practical, tangible Outputs (such as databases, scientific papers, or proposals to other fundings agences [not Sloan] to raise the additional funds needed) and Outcomes (such as knowledge of the biogeography of the margins).

8) The duration of the proposal should be 24 or 36 months.

9) The proposal should thoughtfully employ the framework of the Known, Unknown, Unknowable (separate attachments available re KUU). In this regard, please think carefully about what are the main “limits to knowledge” or obstacles to advance in your field.

10) The proposal must show that the research efforts envisioned are scheduled so they will culminate in time to contribute very substantially to the Census of Marine Life to be released in 2010 (and contribute to the Interim Reports in 2007).

11) The proposal must indicate (briefly) how it is coordinated with the other relevant work of the CoML (see Research Plan Bridges might exist with other field projects and HMAP or FMAP. All CoML projects must integrate their databases through OBIS ( and with the Education and Outreach Network (coordinated by Sara Hickox ).

12) In general the resources sought in the proposal should be applied to creating the baseline infrastructure for a global effort to succeed (expenses for central secretariat, networking, coordination [including with other aspects of CoML], steering or advisory committee, website, etc.). The CoML/Sloan funds are meant to provide essential organizational support that it is hard to include in normal competitive proposals for research and not to replace the funds that can be obtained for field work, modeling, and analysis.

13) The proposal should be very clear about the management strategy, that is, who will do what jobs and who will have responsibilities, obligations, and powers (both carrots and sticks).

14) Make constructive use of the categories of “milestones” of CoML. (see attached)

February 2006

Jesse H. Ausubel

Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,

Milestone categories

1) Participation: number of people, number of countries, disciplines

2) Funding commitments: cash, commitments-in-kind

3) Partnerships: with key international organizations, other programs

4) Program management: adequacy of people (team), form of organization (offices, centers, networks), information systems (websites, listservs, project tracking, etc.)

5) Observations made or otherwise obtained (cruises; data mining)

6) Scientific results and outcomes: Findings, technologies, influence

7) Outputs: protocols, publications

8) Outreach and education: visibility, recognition

9) Data management

10) Synthesis