This document contains a short overview of the Australian Biodiversity Information Standard (ABIS). For more information, see the full ABIS specification.
1. What is ABIS?
ABIS is an Australian standard that specifies how information about biodiversity is to be represented for exchange and use. It is a flexible data model for the biodiversity domain that allows the capture of richer and more detailed information than alternative models.
The standard is structured using Resource Description Framework (RDF), a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) "standard model for data on the web" W3C’s RDF note. RDF maked graphs of data, which have a node-edge-node structure connecting bits of information using defined relationships.
If you have not worked with RDF before, we recommend taking the time to learn about it. A good starting point is the W3C’s RDF Primer.
Where many biodiversity data regimes use a relational (databae) structure, ABIS data can be stored as text data in files, or within databases. ABIS data can be "flattened" into tables or CSV data too.
ABIS implements a few domain-specific concepts itself but mostly re-uses existing general and domain models, such as the TERN ontology, for core biodiversity data, PROV, for provenance information, and schema.org, for general data annotations.
2. Who owns it?
ABIS is maintained and governed by a Standing Working Group, the Australian Biodiversity Information Governance Group (AusBIGG).
AusBIGG meets regularly and involvement in AusBIGG can be obtained by contacting the BDR Team, see More Help below.
3. How do I use it?
Since ABIS is primarily for the exchange of biodiversity information, you are likely going to use ABIS to formulate data for sending to some other party. Perhaps you need to send jurisdictional biodiversity data to the Biodiversity Data Repository (BDR) at DCCEEW. It will only accept ABIS data.
The ABIS technical specification is the primary source of information about ABIS but there are other resources too, such as the BDR’s profile of ABIS too which give more details about ABIS' use with the BDR.
To exchange information using ABIS, you need to:
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Map your data to concepts and vocabularies recognised in ABIS, and
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Format your data into the RDF structure of ABIS.
The first task is a conceptual exercise that you will need both detailed information about your own model and ABIS for and the second is a technical task that will likely need to be undertaken by IT developers.
The BDR Team can assist with both of these tasks, see More Help, below.
4. More Help
Technical management and data modelling support for ABIS is provided by the BDR team in the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW). The BDR team can be contacted on bdr@dcceew.gov.au.
Issue tracking of the ABIS standard is managed online at https://github.com/AusBIGG/abis/issues