Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility (TaiBIF)’s Role in Facilitating Open Biodiversity Data in Taiwan

Abstract

Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility (TaiBIF) was established in 2001 as one of the first Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) nodes. Funded by Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology and Forestry Bureau, TaiBIF’s missions are to: Develop infrastructures for biodiversity-related data, Promote the open data concept, Facilitate the publication and integration of biodiversity information, Support biodiversity-related research and policy-making, and Connect Taiwan and international biodiversity information. Develop infrastructures for biodiversity-related data, Promote the open data concept, Facilitate the publication and integration of biodiversity information, Support biodiversity-related research and policy-making, and Connect Taiwan and international biodiversity information. As part of the work to fulfill its missions, TaiBIF develops and maintains infrastructures such as a data portal, Taiwan Catalogue of Life (TaiCoL), and a tool for scientific name-checking - NomenMatch, for public and researchers to use as needed. Additionally, as the only GBIF data hosting centre currently available in Asia, TaiBIF offers all services mentioned in the GBIF’s data hosting criteria. Briefly, this includes a regularly maintained Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) and help desk for supporting users in dataset and data paper publishing process. In the continuous effort to promote open biodiversity data, TaiBIF organises workshops annually for students, researchers, and any governmental or non-governmental organisations, providing hands-on training focusing on data standardising and the publishing process. As of June 2022, Taiwan has exposed more than 13 million occurrence records and 83 datasets through GBIF's data platform, contributed mostly by 19 data publishing units, making it the second-largest data contributor in Asia (after India). These data have been used in many peer-reviewed studies on various topics and for guiding conservation policies. TaiBIF has maintained close interactions and cooperation with GBIF, regularly assisting in the Biodiversity Information Fund for Asia (BIFA) projects, regional workshops and communications between members from Asian countries. TaiBIF’s current active tasks include allying with the Taiwan Biodiversity Information Alliance (TBIA), a national biodiversity network aimed at the integration of local biodiversity data from various governmental agencies and museums. Furthermore, a volunteer training system is being developed to support workloads at the TaiBIF office. Recognising the importance of data coverage, a data review study of open biodiversity data status in Taiwan is ongoing.