Who We Are

Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is a world-leading research and ocean observing facility hosted and owned by the University of Victoria, and managed by the not-for profit ONC Society. ONC operates unparalleled observatories in the deep ocean and coastal waters of Canada’s three coasts–the Arctic, the Pacific and the Atlantic–gathering biological, chemical, geological and physical data to drive solutions for science, industry and society.

ONC’s observatories collect data via cabled, mobile and community networks. Our infrastructure supplies Internet connectivity to thousands of subsea instruments up to 300 kilometres offshore, to depths of 2,660 metres. Sensor data are also captured on ferries, gliders, fixed buoys and moorings, and from coastal installations hosting radar, ship traffic sensors, weather stations and onshore cameras. ONC’s national coastal community observatory program, developed in collaboration with Indigenous communities and other partners, supports coastal monitoring, school programs, ocean citizen science and youth training.
Data that drives innovation

ONC enables advances in marine safety and many disciplines including high energy particle physics, forensics, material sciences, oceanography, seismic resilience, and climate change impacts and solutions.

ONC’s sophisticated data management system, Oceans 3.0, is recognized by the International Council for Science as a World Data System, providing data 24/7 from a vast array of sensors and instruments. These live data, and archives, are open-source, interoperable and accessible to more than 32,000 global users.
Ocean Intelligence

Ocean intelligence is the bridge that connects data and knowledge to action and change. It is derived from diverse sources and ways of knowing, including the natural and social sciences, observations and modelling, the arts and from Indigenous knowledge attained over generations. In-depth knowledge of the ocean is the foundation of ocean intelligence. ONC applies this knowledge, guided by our values, to make responsible decisions and advance policy for a healthy ocean and a resilient planet.

Source code:

Please contact ONC for more information on the source code.

ONC does maintain a GitHub repository for some projects, however most code is integrated into ONC's system and not readily usable.

Services:

Oceans 3.0 API - Data Product Delivery Service: Allows researchers to programmatically request and download Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) data and data products for specific properties at a location or on a device. Depending on the data product, data can be either returned immediately or downloaded as files in multiple supported formats. Data products can be pre-generated analysis datasets or generated on-demand, based on input parameters such as time range, subsampling, filtering or output format information

Oceans 3.0 API - Deployments Discovery Service: Allows researchers to programmatically discover Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) devices that have observation data for specific device categories, properties, time ranges, geographic locations, data products and more. Data Products are downloadable representations of ONC observational data, provided in formats that can be easily ingested by analytical or visualization software.

Sensor Observation Service - OM-JSON implementation: Link The Sensor Observation Service (SOS) provides an API for managing deployed sensors and retrieving sensor data and specifically 'observation data.'

Sensor Observation Service‚superseded by OM-JSON implementation: This service will be superseded by the new OM-JSON implementation.

WARN Status: The WARN Status service provides an API for querying the status of WARN earthquake and tsunami detection.

Oceans 3.0 API - Device Categories Discovery Service: Allows researchers to programmatically discover Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) devices that have observation data for specific device categories, and properties.

Oceans 3.0 API - Devices Discovery Service: Allows researchers to programmatically discover Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) devices that have observation data.

Oceans 3.0 API - Locations Discovery Service: Allows researchers to programmatically discover Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) locations that have observation data.

Oceans 3.0 API - Properties Discovery Service: Allows researchers to programmatically discover Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) devices that have observation data for specific device categories, and properties.

Oceans 3.0 Dashboards: Allows users to highlight and share a variety of data via user-configurable multidisciplinary Data Dashboards.

Oceans 3.0 Sandbox: Allows researchers to define, test, use and share processing code for user-defined data products in a custom-designed programming environment.