Map-based portals are increasingly being recognised for their use in marine science communication, with enhancement, connectivity and interoperability of data between map-based portals a key challenge. This report outlines the results of consultations with data experts on a pathway for map-based portals to adopt Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and ISO compliant standards to enable the discovery of raw data, summarised and curated data products. A case study using the GlobalArchive.org platform is presented using the ‘FishNClips’ and ‘Visualiser’ tools. This report provides a pathway for the future enhancement, connectivity and interoperability of map-based portals to meet standards to enable the discovery of data and communication products such as interactive imagery and data visualisations. 

Map-based portals are important to ensure current, relevant and reliable marine ecological data is readily available to a wide-range of users and stakeholders. This report describes the outcomes of a Marine Biodiversity Hub workshop held in July 2019 that hosted a discussion on “Map Based Portals for Marine Science Communication and Discovery”. Sixteen existing map-based web portals were presented and discussed with a range of end users to review and learn from the national experience. The users requirements were captured through the narrative of “User stories”, which provided useful information of explanations of the different portal features. We mapped the synergies between existing services, and using the “The Marine Data Landscape” presented at the workshop identified a variety of gaps, and captured new suggestions for future developments, including an assessment on the priority and feasibility of these new initiatives. Recommendations are provided to progress portal development.