BioCASE. Biodiversity Collection Access Service for Europe. Legal and Business position (Final report).

The EU funded project BioCASE (contract nr. EVR1-CT-2001-40017) has established a web-based information service providing researchers with unified access to biological collections in Europe while leaving control of the information with the collection holders. The BioCASE project was based on the preceding EU projects CDEFD, BIOCISE and ENHSIN, and united collection-level and unit-level (i.e., specimen-based or observation-based) information in a common access system. The BioCASE provider package for unit data has been accepted by GBIF as part of its standard services. The contract will end on the 31st of January 2005. From that date on, BioCASE will continue as an established service. This shift implies a number of formal changes and subsequent actions to secure the continuity of this service. The following topics are addressed in this business plan. - Positioning of the BioCASE Network Service relative to GBIF and the European national nodes and data nodes, as well as the task division between these entities. While GBIF is bringing together unit-level data on a world-wide scale, BioCASE incorporates collection-level data, describing entire collections. - Scope and definition of the services. The BioCASE service is restricted to maintaining a European portal for specific European end-user interests, and for other end-users who want access to (European and global) data which are managed in European organisations. For instance, the CETAF project SYNTHESYS (Sixth Research and Technological Development Framework Programme) will amongst others review the strengths in each institution's collections and their expertise. BioCASE metadata will serve as basis of this planned review. - Organisation of the office tasks and the organisational embedding of these tasks. The first host organisation is the Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem. - Budgets with respect to the size and cost structure of the operations, and options for finance and cost recovery. Based on the scope and definition of services, tasks identified by BioCASE contractors have been assigned to global developments under GBIF, BioCASE core-business, or to research and development to be considered on project basis. R&D mainly will have to be in the Thesaurus development. - Legal implications. These include elements for the legal context and legal basis for the service and its organisation, and the arrangements to protect the legal rights of data and software owners. - Strategy to realise these topics. Since within the BioCASE project contract the project participants have agreed to continue their involvement for 18 months after the end of the contract period, implementation has to be finalized before 1 August 2006. The present BioCASE Steering Committee may remain in place for this period.