Data management is the foundation!

It´s not a “hot” topic in the world where words like artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and digital twin of the ocean are flying around. But to make progress in the use of data, we need to recognize the importance of data management.  

By Anna Silyakova, Partner and Project Manager, Science and Regulatory

That is one of the key messages that I took home with me from the Ocean Data Conference in Sopot, Poland last month.  

To succeed in the fast-moving world of ocean data sharing and digital twins of the ocean, we need to globally recognise the importance of the data management domain and call for sustainable and secure funding resources to support this pillar. 

The ocean´s health and what it can offer to society is becoming more and more recognized.

People from all sectors recognize and advocate the importance of ocean data sharing.

But what does it mean to share ocean data?

After executive decisions about sharing ocean data are made, who do we lean on to get it done? The Data Managers!

Overlooking the complexity of data management

Data management is hardly a fashionable topic in a world of digital twins of the ocean, artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain. We never pay enough attention to data management because it is the complicated code behind beautifully designed computer graphics. We rely heavily on it but tend to overlook its complexity. 

However, it is the foundation of our progress in making use of data. Data managers prepare data for us to be translated into meaningful information.

They process, validate, clean, and harmonize different data sets, perform quality control, standardize, convert them into a readable format, and archive them for future generations. Data managers are also our guides into data chains – where data flow and where data sit. 

In the public sector, this domain has conventionally only a few people, if any, and unsustainable funding to support their work. Yet, the public sector, namely – science, is the domain that historically has collected and held the most of ocean data.  

The access to this domain by non-scientists is somewhat hindered because the majority of open-source databases are created for scientists.  

With everything ocean-related developing so fast, there is a growing demand for these databases and more interested user groups, including emerging industries, policymakers, and citizens.  

Getting the foundation right 

The conversation between data managers and multiple users of the data, other than scientists, will result in establishing the interfaces of data products accessible by the technology of the fourth industrial revolution. But this conversation might not happen unless data management becomes a priority and data managers in the public sector are heard and supported by the decisive stakeholders and sustainable funding schemes.  

To build harmony in sustainable ocean use and ocean protection, it is time to recognize that unless we get the foundations right, there is a little chance that the rest will work.

It is time data management becomes a priority.

(Graphics: courtesy of Terry McConell, IOC/FUGRO)