• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 12 / 14 / 2010

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2010.12.14 - 13:46:15 / [email protected]. HAVANA, CUBA.- Researchers from 18 Cuban institutions meeting in Havana agreed to create conditions to strengthen the Cuban Information Network on Biodiversity (RIBC).

The decision was adopted in a meeting held under the auspices of the Cuban Node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), according to the Bissea digital newsletter on the preservation of plants of the Cuban National Botanic Garden.

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) —operational since 2001— is an international organization that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. Its mission is to facilitate free and open access to biodiversity data worldwide to underpin sustainable development.

Some of the objectives of the meeting included developing protocols and standards to ensure scientific integrity and interoperability, and building an informatics architecture to allow the interlinking of diverse data types from disparate sources.

Professors from Costa Rica, Colombia and Spain gave lectures on these and other topics and participants agreed to work for the integration of the Cuban System of Biological Information into the GBIF.

They also highlighted the need to earmark resources to the development of programs to digitalize, manage and spread this type of information.

Source: ACN