UNESCO Review 2007
UNESCO's work plan and budget for the biennium 2006-2007 includes the need for a review of the IODE Programme for the period 2002-2006. The review is managed by UNESCO's Internal Oversight Service. The overview has taken place between March and June 2007 and was carried out by Prof. Juan Carlos Villagrán de León. The review included (i) participation in IODE-XIX to have discussions with IODE Committee Members; (ii) visit to UNESCO/IOC Headquarters to have discussions with the IOC Executive Secretary and Head of the Ocean Observation and Services Section, and IODE programme manager; (iv) visit of the UNESCO Office in Nairobi; (v) visit to the Kenya NODC (Mombasa); (vi) visit to the UK NODC (Liverpool, UK); (vii) visit to the IOC Project Office for IODE, Oostende, Belgium.
Achievements found by the external evaluator
- That the programme is highly relevant - both with respect to UNESCO's mandate and priorities in water, and from the viewpoint of the needs of Member States for oceanographic data and information. This is particularly true for the developing countries. That the lODE is a well respected (by Member States) programme of the IOC;
- In terms of impact, the greatest achievement of lODE is in the area of capacity building covering training and the provision of relevant hardware and software for use in the management of oceanographic data and information;
- That 'Ocean Teacher' developed as the main teaching tool employed by lODE has proved to be very popular among Member States;
- That the lODE has been an efficiently managed programme, despite the scarcity of resources.
Challenges of lODE as assessed by the external evaluator:
- Work in the area of data archiving should be improved;
- More work has to be undertaken with respect to the policy issues covering national security when managing (and exchanging) oceanographic data and information, including the willingness (or unwillingness) of some Member States to exchange data.
- The Quality Assurance function of lODE is underdeveloped (lODE has not been able to ,create global data sets of the same (consistent) quality.
- lODE activities in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe should be increased, and lessons learned in Africa used, where applicable, in these areas.
The recommendations made by the external evaluator include:
- That the lODE needs to promote the replication of efforts related to ocean and marine data and information in other regions of the world where oceanographic networks are being established, such as the Indian Ocean, Countries in Economic Transition (CET), and the Black Sea.
- That the lODE Committee should review the issue of translation of "Ocean Teacher" into other languages, notably Spanish for Latin America, and Russian for several Member States in the former Soviet Union.
- That the lODE Committee should assess how best to proceed in order to reduce the existing gaps in its coverage between the various regions of the world. One possibility could be to explore existing contributions from the Government of Flanders, which could be targeted to such regions.
The final Evaluation Report will be submitted in summarized form to the Spring 2008 session of the Executive Board. lOS will upload the report onto the lOS website, and also request the lODE to prepare an action plan for the implementation of the recommendations contained in the evaluation. The implementation of these will be monitored and reported to you and the Executive Board in due course.
The Full Report is available HERE
Background
Taking into consideration the internal IODE Review Process which took place in 2004/2005, and the information already supplied through the NODC reports submitted during IODE sessions XVIII and XIX, a short questionnaire was prepared addressing particular aspects which are complementary to the information already submitted, and are necessary from the point of view of a Results-based evaluation scheme proposed by UNESCO-IOC.
IODE National Coordinators (Data Management and Marine Information Management) have been requested, on 25 May 2007, to fill and submit the questionnaire by 1 June 2007.
IODE Review 2004/2005
The 22nd Session of the IOC Assembly in June 2003 endorsed the proposal of IODE-XVII (Paris, March 2003) to implement a review of the International Oceanographic Data and Information Ex-change (IODE). In addition, IODE-XVII recommended that the review team should be independent with experience in data management and be users/clients of IODE services. The Committee further requested that Member States as well as stakeholders should be consulted as part of the review and that this could be done in a similar way to the GOOS Review by way of a questionnaire.
IODE has operated under a mandate largely unchanged since its establishment 42 years ago. Since that time the scope of the data that can be usefully exchanged internationally has changed enor-mously. Requirements on timeliness, data quality, volume, and type of variables make examination of the remit and activities of IODE essential if it is to be a significant contribution to international oceanographic data management. The Review Group addressed the changes in structure and operation necessary for IODE to make this contribution.
The Terms of Reference of the IODE Review Group:
1) Review the operation and implementation of the IODE, with particular attention to
(i) its mandate;
(ii) its mission;
(iii) its structure;
(iv) its data centre network(s) and its (their) way(s) of operation;
(v) its mode of operation;
(vi) the activities of its subsidiary groups and projects;
(vii) the national development of IODE activities.
2) Review the extent to which IODE activities, including those specifically targeted at capacity-building in support of IODE, benefit Member States;
3) Present the final review report to the Assembly at its 23rd Session in 2005.
The Review Team was composed as follows:
Mr. Dieter Kohnke (Germany), Chairman;
Dr. Mark Costello (Canada);
Mr. James Crease (United Kingdom);
Dr. Jean Folack (Cameroon);
Mr. Rodney Martinez Guingla (Ecuador);
Dr. Yutaka Michida (Japan).
The Review Group recommended:
1 the following modified objectives of the IODE Committee (modifications in bold)
(i) to facilitate and promote the exchange of oceanographic data, metadata and information;
(ii) to ensure the long-term archival of oceanographic data;
(iii) to develop or help in the development of standards and methods for the global exchange of oceanographic data, metadata and information, using the latest IT techniques;
(iv) to assist Member States to acquire the necessary capacity to manage oceanographic data and information and become partners in the IODE network; and
(v) to support international scientific and operational oceanographic programmes of IOC and WMO and their sponsor organisations with advice and data management services.
(Ref.: section 1)
2 reducing the present number of IODE Officers drastically. The group of IODE Officers should consist of: the IODE Chairperson, the Vice-Chairperson, and the Chairpersons of groups joint with other organizations. The WDC Directors and selected regional, scientific or technical ex-perts may be invited to Officers’ Meetings, if the agenda calls for them. Taking into account that the IODE Committee meets every second year or so one Officers Meeting should follow immediately the Committee Meeting to finalize the Action Plan, a second meeting should be held during the intersessional period to review progress and prepare for the coming Committee meeting. (Ref.: sections 4.1.3 and 7.3)
3 that the Groups of Experts be abolished. Instead the IODE Committee should be encouraged to form Steering Groups with clearly defined goals. Any person or organisation may submit a project proposal either to the IODE Chairperson or to the IOC Secretariat. The proposal must be relevant to a strengthening of the international oceanographic data and information exchange. The proposal will be evaluated by the IODE Officers in consultation with external experts and passed on to an IOC Governing Body (Assembly or Executive Council) for approval, taking into account the financial implications. If the proposal is endorsed by the IODE Officers then the work may proceed pending approval if there are no immediate financial implications to IOC.
Some specific action items of the old Group of Experts and projects could be the basis for some new steering groups. For example the continued development of Marine XML (4.1.13 and 4.2.5) could be supported in this way.
A Steering Group should consist of no more than 6 competent experts. The person (or a group) who has submitted the project proposal should have the right to recommend the members of the group. (Ref.: sections 4.1.13; 4.1.14; 7.2; and 3.1 ‘The Functioning of GEs’)
4 for the future, a more distributed system in each country. The data generating oceanographic institutions may initially keep their data in their own data base. The NODC and others should have access to this data base. The NODC should function as a national coordinator for the dis-tributed data bases (that is, function as a hub). It agrees upon standards with the data origina-tors, and it archives the data at the national level for holding an offsite backup. The NODC should be encouraged to establish a portal for easy navigation through the national distributed network. (Ref.: sections 4.1.11; 7.10; and 3.2 ‘NODCs’ and ‘Data Submission to NODC’)
5 abolishing the RNODCs. Instead, IODE should encourage national data centres and research programmes to identify, advertise, and coordinate institutions that are willing to take up special responsibilities (preparation of scientific products or provision of scientific services) as part of the distributed data centre system of IODE suggested above. (Ref.: sections 4.1.10; 7.9; and 3.2 ‘RNODCs’)
6 that those countries of a region with relatively small oceanographic activities should consider the feasibility of establishing a joint multi-national oceanographic data centre. The creation of such a centre, which should function as a regional hub could have enormous synergetic effects. (Ref.: sections 7.10; and 3.2 ‘NODCs’ and ‘Data Submission to NODC’)
7 that IODE make a strong endeavour to ensure a better quality of oceanographic data. Measured data should always be accompanied by information (metadata) about quality assurance proced-ures applied both before and during the measurement, and while analysing and processing the data. (Ref.: sections 6; and 3.1 ‘Quality Control (QC)’)
8 IODE to intensify its interaction with appropriate scientific programmes, institutions or agen-cies, either nationally or internationally, in the development and production of scientific ser-vices and products, especially with regard to areas of IODE weakness such as biological data (including species and fisheries data). (Ref.: sections 7.12; 3.1 ‘IODE Services’ and ‘General impressions’)
9 that IOC consults ICSU and scientific partners on the best way to build, in consultation with IODE, one master global data set of the best possible scientific quality for long-term archival. There should be IODE or ICSU backups or ‘mirror site’ at other locations to maximise data se-curity.
It further recommends that the WDCs provide open access to these data. (Ref.: sections 4.1.9; 7.8; and 3.2 ‘WDCs’)
10 that the IODE reviews the need and resources required for the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD), the European Directory of Marine Environmental Data (EDMED), and the Global Observing Systems Information Center (GOSIC) Dataset Registry considering the develop-ments in online search engines.
11 abolishing the system of IODE Regional Coordinators. (Ref.: sections 4.1.5 and 7.5)
12 that the IOC Secretariat urges those IOC Member States which have not yet done so to nomi-nate an IODE National Coordinator so as to improve liaison between their national oceanog-raphic institutions and the IOC Secretariat. (Ref.: sections 4.1.4 and 7.4)
13 that the 23rd Session of the Assembly demands that IOC’s Member States implement IOC’s Data Policy which was approved by the 22nd Assembly in 2003 at their national level. (Ref.: section 3.2 ‘IOC Data Policy’)
14 because of its cross-cutting nature, its special expertise, and unique role for the global exchange of marine data, to keep the IODE unit on the same administrative level to maintain its effi-ciency. The unit should continue to operate independently from other IOC Programmes. (This recommendation may be subject to any future broader re-organization of the IOC Secretariat.) (Ref.: sections 4.1.6 and 7.6)
15 the IOC Secretariat to consider ways and means for contracting out to private consultants IODE related operational activities. The possibility of outsourcing to an NODC or national agency on a volunteer basis should also be recognized.
(Ref.: section 4.2.9)
16 that the IOC websites should be simplified and should have a common style and navigational system. (Ref.: section 4.2.10)
17 that IODE plays a pro-active role in the ETDMP and that the Officers monitor progress with particular care to avoid the same structural problems as the other groups of experts. (Ref.: sec-tion 4.1.15)
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Created on: Friday, 25 May 2007 17:54
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Last Updated on: Monday, 01 July 2013 12:20
