[tdwg-tag] SourceForge LSID project websites broken - role for TDWG? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

greg whitbread ghw at anbg.gov.au
Wed Apr 15 16:00:15 CEST 2009


I like this compromise Rod.  But I think that it is time to give up on
the concept of multiple identifiers.

The existing TDWG recommendation that
'5. All references to LSIDs within RDF documents should use the
proxified form', basically states that LSID will never appear in any
way other than bundled into an http URI  - if we are also to publish
data as RDF.

That sounds as if it means that those wanting to use LSID resolution
will first have to extract the LSID part from the http URI which will
now appear everywhere we would expect to find our unique identifier.

Donald has presented a strong case for unique identifiers conforming
to the LSID specification but we have now an equally strong case that
in its http form our identifier must behave as a dereferenceable URN
per W3C linked data recommendations.

Acceptance of this requirement will impact on existing services
expecting RDF back from the proxy service without content negotiation
and require update of TDWG GUID policy and recommendations so it is
important that we try to get this sorted here as soon as possible.

greg

2009/4/10 Roderic Page <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>:
> In a rare attempt at being constructive, here are a few thoughts.
>
> LSIDs and linked data
> =================
>
> If adoption of LSIDs proceeds, then we should make efforts to see that
> they play nicely with Linked Data efforts. For example, a HTTP
> resolver would need to support 303 redirects and content negotiation.
> This help avoid us creating our own ghetto, but still exploit whatever
> advantages LSIDs have.
>
> Roger set up something along these lines to handle Biological
> Collections Index (BioCol) LSIDs. There is a nice tool at http://validator.linkeddata.org/
>  to check whether a URI behaves as Linked Data tools expect. Sadly
> the proxied BioCol LSIDs (e.g., http://biocol.org/urn:lsid:biocol.org:col:15670
>  ) don't validate, but this should be easy to fix. The TDWG resolver
> similarly fails.
>
> I've implemented a simple resolver at bioGUID that returns either raw
> RDF or a clumsily formatted HTML version of the XML, but which passes
> the http://validator.linkeddata.org tests. An example URI is http://bioguid.info/urn:lsid:indexfungorum.org:names:213649
> , which validates http://tinyurl.com/cgje5n
>
> So, my first recommendation is to ensure that a TDWG HTTP proxy passes http://validator.linkeddata.org/
>  . This means we can play with the Semantic Web crowd with LSIDs.
>
> Note that getting HTTP URIs to play with Linked Data is not trivial,
> so whatever technology we adopt we'll need clear guidelines as to how
> to use it. As an aside bioGUID can make DOIs play nice as well (they
> don't by default), and Kinglsey Idehen http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/
> ~kidehen/ of OpenLink Software is supporting LSIDs in the Linked Data
> tools he's developing.
>
> Ontology
> =======
>
> As part of my experiment to wikify taxonomic names, literature, etc.,
> I've been playing with the TDWG vocabularies. I've a few grizzles, but
> in general they've been really useful, and I think these will be key
> (as Donald and Lee have emphasised).
>
> Service
> ======
>
> Ironically one of the examples Lee listed when defending the TDWG's
> resolver (urn:lsid:gdb.org:GenomicSegment:GDB132938) seems to have
> disappeared (I think TDWG has a cached copy). This raises the ongoing
> problem of service availability. TDWG's resolver could help here, in
> that could be used to generate reports on service quality and notify
> providers when something's wrong. Whatever GUID technology adopted
> this will be an issue, and the challenge is to build tools and
> mechanisms to manage this.
>
> Funding
> ======
>
> I've nothing useful to say here, other than to suggest that clearly
> the integration of biodiversity data sales pitch hasn't (yet?)
> succeeded. I think us techies get it, but we've not made that vision
> real or compelling. If we had, I think we'd have institutions falling
> over themselves to ensure the infrastructure exists and persists.
> Naive, I know, but we could ask why we haven't managed to convince
> those with the purse strings that this stuff matters.
>
> One quick and dirty way that might help is if the TDWG LSID resolver
> stored all the metadata in the LSIDs it resolves in a triple store and
> exposes a SPARQL query interface to that metadata. We could then start
> to look for interesting links between data.
>
> Regards
>
> Rod
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Roderic Page
> Professor of Taxonomy
> DEEB, FBLS
> Graham Kerr Building
> University of Glasgow
> Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
>
> Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Greg Whitbread
Australian National Botanic Gardens
Australian National Herbarium
+61 2 62509482
ghw at anbg.gov.au



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