The ESIP Biological Data Standards Cluster formed in 2020 to maximize data relevance and utility for understanding changes in biodiversity over time. To accomplish this the cluster facilitates guidance, documentation, training, and community building for the US biological data community. The first product from this cluster Biological Data Standards Primer, while an easy to digest resource, does not provide the context data managers need to decide which standards to use for the data they are working with. The guideline documents [this repo] are intended to be a bridge between the full, lengthy standards documentation, and the short primer quick reference.

While the primer provided a quick reference it didn't provide enough context for new data managers to make decisions on which standards would be best to implement for the data they are working with. This suite of guidelines documents is intended to provide a bit more information than what you see in the primer but not the full standards documentation. The suite of documents will pair with the different sections of the primer. The first document being developed is for the "Make Your Data Software Ready?" section of the primer.

If you would like to suggest changes or additions to the current version of the guideline documents, please use the GitHub issues to document your request. The current draft can be seen as a rendered webpage here.