ISRIC delivers two capacity-strengthening trainings under AUSO

As part of the African Union Soil Observatory (AUSO) project, ISRIC successfully delivered two online training sessions on 19 and 27 May 2026 to strengthen consortium partners and other interested stakeholders' knowledge and skills in key project areas.

The first training focused on the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) principles in soil data management, providing participants with practical knowledge and hands-on experience applying FAIR principles in the context of soil data. FAIR principles facilitate the success of the AUSO project. Specifically, participants learned to:

• Understand the FAIR principles and their relevance to soil data.

• Recognise common challenges in soil data management.

• Explore and evaluate soil-related datasets and publications in open repositories.

• Apply basic FAIR practices to improve data sharing and reuse.

• Identify suitable repositories for publishing soil data.

• Understand the role of controlled vocabularies in improving data discoverability and interoperability.

The second training centred on soil data management with ISO 28258. Participants learned how soil data is structured using ISO 28258, how data governance and licensing apply to a project like AUSO, and how raw soil data is prepared, cleaned, and ingested into a standards-based system. Specifically, participants learned to:

• Understand the ISO 28258 soil data standard and its core components.

• Recognise the importance of data governance in the soil data context.

• Choose appropriate data licences and understand their practical implications.

• Map raw soil data to the ISO 28258 data model.

• Identify common data quality issues in soil datasets.

• Understand the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) process for ingesting soil data.

These training sessions are part of the AUSO project’s capacity strengthening activities under tasks 4.6 and 4.7. Read more about it here. One of the goals of AUSO is to enhance the capacities of consortium partners and relevant stakeholders to manage, use and understand AUSO, and carry out awareness campaigns about AUSO in Africa and globally. Learn more about AUSO.

ISRIC extends its appreciation to all participants, trainers, and partners who contributed to the success of these training sessions and looks forward to delivering further opportunities for learning and collaboration under AUSO. In the future, training topics may include soil mapping, soil data management, and systems maintenance, depending on the needs of the participants.