NETWORK ANALYSIS TOOL
The network analysis tool identifies additional opportunities for
targeted outreach to expand the consortium’s network
Users generate network graphs on the web app by:
- Selecting the BiCIKL consortium partner
- Selecting whether to view the first- or second-order organizational relationships
- Clicking “Visualize”
By default, the web app displays three types of relationships between the organization and associated FAIRsharing records: ones that “maintain”, “collaborate on” or are “associated with” FAIRsharing objects. Users who wish to see a network graph that includes organizations that “fund” or have an “undefined” relationship can uncheck the box above the visualize button.
Users can customize the view at the top of the table to show more rows and narrow their searches across all of the tables’ columns to further filter results. The table preserves links to the FAIRsharing source information on the related organizations and FAIRsharing objects.
The network analysis tool developed for BiCIKL’s Biodiversity Knowledge Hub (BKH) provides a lightweight, flexible framework for identifying additional opportunities for targeted outreach to expand the consortium’s network and guiding the development and trajectory of educational and training materials.
The network analysis tool reuses and extends data from FAIRsharing.org, a community-curated set of registries describing data standards, databases and data policies that aim to fulfil the FAIR Principles. Its website, FAIRsharing.org, allows users to search, browse and visualize the complex, interlocking web of connections between these entities, hereafter known as “FAIRsharing objects”.
BiCIKL partners targeted the organizational links associated with each FAIRsharing record, hoping to draw out links to a wider network of institutions and support in the ongoing work of:
- identifying and cataloguing relevant information about stakeholders
- documenting their interest in the BiCIKL’s outputs
- engaging them as contributors to, or users of, the consortium’s infrastructures
FAIRsharing staff were extremely supportive, willing partners in this effort to extend the many capabilities they already provide. In addition to implementing improvements that resolved issues for accessing organizational data via the FAIRsharing API, they also fast-tracked their own plans to enhance support for community curation with new roles and permissions.
The open-source code for the web app is maintained in a GBIF GitHub repository (https://github.com/gbif/bicikl-org-viz).