Best practice summary Report: Report summarizing the relevant best practices available in the GEOSS (AtlantOS) best practices registry.

1 Table of Contents 2 INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 5 3 REQUIREMENTS FOR AN OCEAN BEST PRACTICES SYSTEM (OBPS) 6 4 SYSTEM STRATEGY AND CONCEPT 8 4.1 OBPS STRATEGY 8 4.2 OBPS CONCEPT 10 5 OBPS IMPLEMENTATION 12 5.1 SYSTEM ATTRIBUTES 12 5.1.1 EASY DISCOVERY AND ACCESS TO BEST PRACTICES 12 5.1.2 ROBUST AND SUSTAINABLE REPOSITORY 12 5.1.3 SUPPORTING BEST PRACTICE EVOLUTION AND MATURITY 12 5.1.4 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SUPPORT 13 5.1.5 CAPACITY BUILDING AND TRAINING 13 5.2 SYSTEM STRUCTURE 13 5.2.1 OBPS REPOSITORY 14 5.2.2 OBPS PEER REVIEW AND COMMUNITY FORUM 16 5.2.3 CAPACITY BUILDING AND TRAINING 18 5.2.4 OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT 18 6 SUSTAINABILITY AND PARTNERSHIPS 20 7 FUTURE DIRECTIONS 22 8 REFERENCES 23 5 2 Introduction and Summary As the oceans are key determinants affecting global sustainability issues such as climate change, food security and human health, the need to understand the marine environment and ocean dynamics is essential. However the scale of oceans, their transnational character, three-dimensional nature and strong attenuation of light (causing limitations of satellite observations (Yan, 2013) and electromagnetic radiation such as GPS signals (Clark, et al., 2016) introduce enduring challenges. The path to sustainable global ecosystems, as framed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UNSDG 2018, Wackernagel, 2017) and prioritized through essential ocean variables (EOV) (GOOS, 2018), engages a broad range of disciplines, not all conversant with each other’s language, techniques and best practices. Ocean observing experts have recognized these multi-disciplinary challenges (Kulcarni, 2015, Olson, 1988) and the need to address them. Given the complexity of these issues and the need for globalization of ocean science and applications, a crosscutting vision for broad interoperability and sustainable observations is “to have agreed methods for every activity in ocean observing research, operations and applications that are broadly adopted.” This is a vision that may not be achievable in the next decade, but offers a stretch goal that could have significant impacts. Best practices are an important element in supporting this vision, but the diversity of stakeholders makes discovering relevant best practices (BP) more difficult. Addressing this challenge rests upon: a)the creation of a basic resource for efficient discovery and access of documented best practices; and b)the acquisition and management of sufficient best practice documentation within this resource. A trusted and stable archive is needed as a focal point including harmonizing the formats of best practice documents and ensuring their contents are accessible through the Web. Further, the discoverability of content should be augmented using granular indexing and documented provenance. The creation and use of best practices supports high priority objectives of AtlantOS and global ocean observing capabilities. Furthering of interoperability within and across disciplines allows measurements to be better understood and compared. The sustained documentation of measurement methodologies allows replication of historical observations. The best practices being addressed here are not only those for observations, but are considering the full value chain from observations to products in the user’s hands and ultimately the impact on society. Task 6.4 under AtlantOS “Innovation” WP 6, drew together a team representing major organizations interested in creating and propagating ocean best practices. The development of an Ocean Best Practice System (OBPS) also included support and collaboration from the Horizon 2020 Ocean Data Interoperability Platform (ODIP) and the NSF sponsored OceanObs Research Coordination Network. The OBPS includ