Chapter 1 Welcome

This book is the Toolbox Training for the Ocean Health Index. It improved iteratively and the most recent version always openly available online.

The single biggest motivation of the Ocean Health Index is to use science to inform marine management. And not just any science, the best available science, data, methods, and tools. OHI assessments use collaborative open software so that they are transparent and reproducible; we call this software the OHI Toolbox.

Openness is an important part of how we work; we describe how and why in Lowndes et al. 2017, Nature Ecology & Evolution: Our path to better science in less time using open data science tools. Using the OHI Toolbox requires coding and using data science software; you can learn this in OHI’s Intro to Open Data Science training book.

This Toolbox Training book will train you to prepare for and use the OHI Toolbox. It can be used to teach workshops or for self-paced learning.

If you’re looking for a higher-level overview of what the OHI is and how to start thinking about it with your team, please see the OHI Onboarding Book.