O is used for the University of Oslo > Natural History Museum > Botanical Museum
NHMO is used for University of Oslo > Natural History Museum > Zoological Museum
(NHMO is proposed as the acronym for the entire museum, but I believe that no consensus is reached yet between botany and zoology "departments"...)

University >> Faculty >> "Department"-ish (no longer formal departments)
University of Oslo >> Natural History Museum [proposed NHMO]
University of Oslo >> Natural History Museum >> Zoology [NHMO]
University of Oslo >> Natural History Museum >> Botany [O]
University of Oslo >> Natural History Museum >> Paleontology [PALMUS] (no occurrences in GBIF yet)

The Natural History Museum in Oslo (NHMO) was created in 1999 (current name since 2005) (see history).

Before 1999:
University >> Faculty >> Department
University of Oslo >> Faculty of MatNat >> Botanical Garden
University of Oslo >> Faculty of MatNat >> Botanical Museum
University of Oslo >> Faculty of MatNat >> Zoological Museum
University of Oslo >> Faculty of MatNat >> Geological Museum

The Norwegian university museums (and some faculties, and some institutes for biology/geography/...) are registered as separate data publishers in GBIF, however, the ROR, and Grid identifies the entire university...

University >> Faculty >> Department
University of Oslo (level 1 institution registered in ROR, Grid, and ISNI)
University of Oslo >> Natural History Museum (level 2 -- registered as a publisher in GBIF, and ISNI, but not ROR or Grid)
University of Oslo >> Faculty of MatNat >> Department of Biosciences (level 3 -- registered as a publisher in GBIF)
University of Oslo >> Faculty of MatNat >> Department of Geosciences (level 3 -- registered as a publisher in GBIF)
University of Oslo >> Faculty of MatNat (level 2 -- registered in ISNI, but not in GBIF, ROR, or Grid)

And another challenge is that the landscape and hierarchical organisation of institutions changes. Recently many Norwegian University Colleges merged with each other and with one of the classical 4-5 national universities. Some formerly independent institutions have become level 2 faculties or maybe even level 3 departments. And some of these seem to have their institution identifiers already declared BEFORE they merged and became sub-units of other institutions.

E.g. Norwegian School Of Veterinary Science ---> NMBU >> Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
Veterinary School reorganized in 2014 (relocation to be completed in 2020/2021)
NMBU itself was formerly the Agricultural School and reorganized from University College to University in 2005.
The Veterinary School (now a faculty at NMBU) is not registered separately in GBIF yet, but publishing occurrences through Artsdatabanken (using Artsobservasjoner).

Many similar recent reorganisations in Tromsø...

See also issue https://github.com/gbif/registry/issues/282 and https://github.com/gbif/registry/issues/284

And I added a list of Norwegian institutions (and sub-units) holding scientific collections to your spreadsheet here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N84hUeXiQqFpOjSznaBrYyuijAgLgRsbFvEXDdeP05o/edit#gid=712811751

Hi @rukayaj @dagendresen
We don't support child institutions but we now have the possibility to add alternative institutions and collection codes. In addition to that, we also have a "merge" feature (which will automatically transfer identifiers and fill in alternative codes to the remaining institution https://github.com/gbif/registry/issues/255).

So depending on how you would like to represent the institutions, you could have each of them represented as (separate) institutions (and mention in the description the relationship with the others) or you could merge some of them and/or add alternative codes. Of course, merging entities can quickly become quite messy so be sure that this is what you need first.

I am leaving the issue open as a reminder (and use case) to explore nested entities.

I believe we might want to keep university departments (etc) as separate data publishers (for accreditation, etc) -- and thus not to merge. However, a nested hierarchy of organizations would indeed be very useful!! (including aggregated metrics, counting of occurrences, citations, etc across all child sub-units of a parent organization).

... if we would merge all child units then at what level to stop :-) All universities in Norway are "children" organized under the Ministry of Education and Research. All public institutions are organized under the Government of Norway :-)

It makes sense to me to merge institutions up the hierarchy until we find one of them which has a grid/ror identifier. But I think we can have the different departments as separate publishers in GBIF still - it looks like GBIF organizations/publishers are treated completely separately from GRSciColl institutions, right @ManonGros?

Or maybe it's a better idea to keep the two lists (GRSciColl institutions + GBIF organizations/publishers) as similar as possible? I don't really have any strong opinions.

Thanks for adding the list of institutions + identifiers, @dagendresen !

@dagendresen I can't promise anything but we will explore the idea. That being said, @rukayaj is correct, GrSciColl institutions and GBIF organizations/publishers are separate.
You could keep separate GBIF organizations and merge the GrSciColl institutions for example.

Keep in mind that without any nesting system, you can already group the data and generate stats on GBIF based on:

• dataset
• publishing organization
• hosting organization
• node
• projectID
• GrSciColl collection
• GrSciColl institution
• network (not for everyone - more on the scope for those later)
• and of course some other data attributes such as recorder, year, etc.

I am thinking more of the stats that is presented (user-friendly) to the portal users, than stats that we at the GBIF Node CAN generate :-)

(And as proposed/wished for previously -- years ago) I would prefer to link data to institutions (data publisher) using the dwc:institutionID rather than the EML (nor the institutionCode). And for specimens (occurrences) to link to collections using dwc:collectionID and not the EML nor the collectionCode.

I meant this type of data aggregation/stats:

• dataset: https://www.gbif.org/dataset/d34ed8a4-d3cb-473c-a11c-79c5fec4d649/metrics
• publishing organization: https://www.gbif.org/publisher/f314b0b0-e3dc-11d9-8d81-b8a03c50a862/metrics
• hosting organization: https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/charts?hosting_organization_key=64795dcb-ad74-41b3-95e5-cc52ba754776
• node: https://www.gbif.org/country/NO/publishing
• projectID: https://www.gbif.org/project/6vsEqjdu6IUGaqKK8Wyyme/strengthening-malawis-biodiversity-information-facility#datasets and https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/charts?advanced=1&project_id=BID-AF2017-0385-NAC&occurrence_status=present
• GrSciColl collection: https://www.gbif.org/grscicoll/collection/fa4814fb-7a6a-450d-8099-e01e42d26f3d/metrics
• GrSciColl institution: https://www.gbif.org/grscicoll/institution/2e961f1c-399e-4aab-92ea-0657722f8dcd/metrics
• network (not for everyone - more on the scope for those later): https://www.gbif.org/network/2b7c7b4f-4d4f-40d3-94de-c28b6fa054a6/metrics

I would recommend the Natural History Museum getting its own GRID identifier and register in GRID as child organisation below the University of Oslo (UiO). That way, in a future PID graph, provenance etc. can be linked directly to the Museum (and also still to the University).

If GRID supports parent-child hierarchy (and self-registration/curration?) maybe we do not need GrSciColl at all :-)
... at least not create any NEW institution identifier in GrSciColl!! but only reuse GRID, ROR, and/or ISNI.
Do you know how we/the GBIF-node (?) could register the UiO-NHM as a new entry in GRID?

I just had the exact same thought :) I wonder if GRID lets you specify that this institute holds scientific collections...

I think you can use the suggest an institute button on https://www.grid.ac/institutes

Should we try -- I can try now. I have sent a request for a GRID for the museum. Ticket #68248

Yes you can use the suggest button for that in their site. GRID metadata is very limited and generic so will not cover all community needs for metadata about an institution I think. The museum would be an "Archive" under GRID, with no way to specify that it holds scientific collections.

About GRID numbers for "child"-"institutions" such as the University museums

https://gridac.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/68248

68248 New record in GRID for the Natural History Museum in Oslo?

Dag Endresen, reported 14 days ago
Is it possible to register a new entry for the UiO Natural History Museum as a child under the University of Oslo (https://www.grid.ac/institutes/grid.5510.1)

The museum is organized as part of the university at the same level as the faculties.

See also:
https://github.com/gbif/registry/issues/285

UiO Natural History Museum:
https://isni.org/isni/0000000406138625
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1840963
https://www.gbif.org/grscicoll/institution/ffe44856-4ea4-4443-ab9f-4b3c7581b2bb
https://www.gbif.org/publisher/f314b0b0-e3dc-11d9-8d81-b8a03c50a862
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_History_Museum_at_the_University_of_Oslo
Parent institution https://www.grid.ac/institutes/grid.5510.1

GRID Support , said an hour ago
Dear Dag Endresen,

Thank you for your suggestion and for providing us with such detailed information about this organisation and the underlying use case. Unfortunately creating a GRID record for a department like institution within a university does not line up with our current content policies.
​
We had an internal discussion how to handle this request and if we were able to do an exception, but the negative effect in doing so would be that the University of Oslo in other systems using GRID would be facing content loss, e.g. publications, which than would be assigned to the UiO Natural History Museum. Therefore we currently cannot support the use case behind this request.
​
Best wishes,
Maren Wöltje
​GRID Support Team

Dag Endresen , said 30 minutes ago
Cc: wouter.[email protected], [email protected]
​May thanks for considering the request so carefully! And for finding a clear guideline! This clear guideline will assist in our planning and current design of catalogs for biodiversity information holding institutions and collection holding museums.
Thanks!
Dag