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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Bob,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Well, Lynette is from Atlas of Living
Australia and Rupert Wilson is from Royal Horticultural Society – neither
natural history museum nor herbarium. But, even so, the “non-major”
museums, zoos, aquaria, gardens, arboreta and herbaria (whoever they might be) are
not a small bunch and I have to presume are not just limited to Excel
spreadsheets, but there certainly are some no doubt.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>We simply have to recognize the existence
of these thousands of nonacademic folks with biodiversity data systems out
there. And frankly, the high school Java programmer reference might not be
that far off in some corners of the world’s data sources. Excel, maybe
too. It’s just a reality that TDWG needs to accept and support somehow. And,
again, I’m not saying we don’t need the semantic inferencing tools
and standards, which we do. And I still think there should be a standard TDWG
Ontology, hard as that may be to do. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I just think we need to hedge the TDWG standards
some for the sake of the Lynettes and Ruperts of the world. If IPT were the
universal integrator, adaptable to all sources and receivers, then I suppose
that would make it like the “oil light” and end of discussion. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Chuck<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> Bob Morris
[mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com] <br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Friday, May 15, 2009 1:27 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Chuck Miller<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Cc:</span></b> Lee Belbin;
tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: [tdwg-tag] TDWG
ontology revisited ... a newcomer'sperspective [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>OK. I'll put the elephant
back in the room. But first I'll go Chuck one further: once the major
natural history museums and herbaria are taken out of the discussion, the
biodiversity data holding community is made up of people who don't want to hear
about anything except Excel(tm) spreadsheets, and well they shouldn't.<br>
<br>
Elephant wise, there is a case to be made that it is not standards bodies, but
rather funded, mandated organizations like GBIF whose job is development of
tools and training in their use, even when assistance of the
standards-making participants is needed in the technical implementation of the
tools. GBIF was pretty successful in that regard with their DiGIR
provider, and is well on their way to another success with the Integrated Publishing
Toolkit. <br>
<br>
Usually, standards bodies are made up of people who contribute because they
\are/ tool builders and want to make sure their tools have the required level
of interoperability with whatever other tools they perceive interoperability is
in their users' interests. <br>
<br>
The global automotive industry is a good model (but so is the OpenGeospactial
Consortium [note "Consortium" in their name]. ) . With no
real data, I'll wager that an insignificant fraction of private owners of
automobiles have no clue what is the appropriate motor oil to use in their car,
much less how to understand how to choose a motor oil, or understand such
things as the relation between SAE10W30 designated motor oil and
something corresponding to it in an EU standard. In fact, what most people want
is simply a light to come on in their car when it is time to take the car to
someone who knows what is the appropriate thing to do to make that light go out
and keep the car safe and valuable. Using a "change oil" indicator
is an easy thing to learn. Designing cars with useful indicator lights is
not. Even selling or servicing cars is not an easy thing to learn, and
maybe those are the analogy of the community in pain being put forth in
these threads. If developing, deploying, and maintaining biodiversity
information systems were not technically demanding enterprises, Mobot could
fire its technical staff and hire a bunch of high school students who have had
a course in Java and are masters of Twitter and Facebook. There are a lot of those
for hire.<br>
<br>
<br>
Bob Morris<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Chuck Miller <<a
href="mailto:Chuck.Miller@mobot.org">Chuck.Miller@mobot.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Lee,<br>
As you know, I am a proponent of the simple and the understandable,
particularly for the folks like Lynette. I am glad to see a couple of
appeals from the gallery to counterpoint the continuing pursuit of the complex
issues. The biodiversity informatics/data community like it or not is primarily
made up of those who do not spend their time expanding the limits of web-based
semantic inference. It may very well be that the only viable solutions
for some of the use cases of biodiversity can only be reached by semantic
inference. But, the barrier to entry for folks like Lynnette (and there
are many, many) is just too high and so solving those use cases by web-based
semantics is simply out of reach for them. We must accept that.<br>
<br>
We positively must enable the folks who do not understand triples, RDF, OWL,
SPARQL and the rest to still be able to play in the global biodiversity data
sandbox. We must continue to offer methods and techniques that do not require
this level of knowledge. Call it a "light" version, or whatever you
will, but I strongly believe the community at large needs it.
Unfortunately, that "community at large" doesn't speak up on
Taxacom or TDWG much. I fear it's because they can't follow the technical
threads and like Lynette are baffled and discouraged.<br>
<br>
TDWG has to continue to recognize the need to keep it simple, at least in part.
It's always an 80-20 situation I think. That does not preclude continuing
work on the deeper, triples-based approaches for the 20%. But, we must
additionally and in parallel provide simpler, compatible approaches for the
80%. We need to listen to that 80%.<br>
<font color="#888888"><span style='color:#888888'><br>
Chuck</span></font><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org</a>]
On Behalf Of Lee Belbin<br>
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 7:38 PM<br>
To: <a href="mailto:tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>
Subject: Re: [tdwg-tag] TDWG ontology revisited ... a newcomer'sperspective
[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]<br>
<br>
Hi Lynette, Greg, Gregor et al.,<br>
<br>
I've only just caught up with this thread, but feel obliged to post (I sound
like Rich).<br>
<br>
A few months ago (and not for the first time), I came to exactly the same
conclusion as you Lynette. There is I fear, a growing gap between the more
technical members of TDWG and those who are joining TDWG from applications
areas such as biology, taxonomy etc. As time goes on, this gap seems more
evident, and nowhere is this more apparent than with the 'TDWG ontology'.<br>
<br>
The TDWG ontology is probably the most important priority we currently have.
Your comments about the use of the ontology to help newcomers understand the
domain is spot on. I'd also say that the newcomers are in many cases, domain
experts who have a lot to contribute to the ontology, but really can't in its
present form. The ontology is also mandatory if we want to efficiently cross
link all the various TDWG activities/groups. Recent comments about Darwin Core
and the TDWG ontology is a prime example!<br>
<br>
The ontology is priority-1 for TDWG, BUT (it is a big but), we need effective
tools (preferably A web based tool) that would EASILY enable anyone (not just
Protégé experts) to view (in various forms that were suitable for the purpose),
manage, build, annotate, document, import and export bits or all of the
ontology/vocabularies is helpful formats.<br>
<br>
If TDWG has these issues with developing and using an effective ontology,
plenty of others must have also! Surely?<br>
<br>
I discussed this with Donald and he agreed and said that Greg and Garry were
thinking about this as well (as Greg has suggested). I also discussed the
ontology issue with Gail Kampmeier as she has a graduate student looking for a
biodiversity informatics project - and this is a beauty. Markus Döring also
said at the Fremantle meeting that he was keen to lead work on the ontology. I
also discussed this same issue a month or so ago with Roger (post TONTO :), but
I fear that Roger is in the 'techie' category and didn't fully grasp what I was
trying to get across about SIMPLE etc. That's probably my fault. Your email
Lynette seems to have got the point across better than I've done.<br>
<br>
There is a meeting about the ontology scheduled on the Tuesday evening at
eBiosphere where Donald, Eamonn, Karen Stocks, hopefully Roger and a few others
plan to discuss the issues. Please let me know the key issues that COULD be
addressed at that meeting. Thankfully there seems to be some critical mass
building about quickly moving forward on the ontology. I'd like to see what I
can do to ensure that it happens.<br>
<br>
There is obviously nothing stopping work on aspects of the ontology such as
Roger and Peter have suggested. If I can do anything about setting up a Wiki or
similar easy tasks, please let me know.<br>
<br>
Lee<br>
<br>
Lee Belbin<br>
TDWG Secretariat<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org</a>]
On Behalf Of Greg Whitbread<br>
Sent: Thursday, 14 May 2009 7:09 PM<br>
To: Lynette.Woodburn@csiro.au<br>
Cc: <a href="mailto:tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org">tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org</a><br>
Subject: Re: [tdwg-tag] TDWG ontology revisited ... a newcomer's perspective
[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]<br>
<br>
Lynette,<br>
<br>
Yes. I agree. To this end we (Garry is the one with the Twiki skills) are
experimenting with ways of doing this using the TDWG wiki, one term per page
described using dcmi /terms/ namepaces <a
href="http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/" target="_blank">http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/</a>
, but alternatives do need to be considered before we make a start. I have just
had another look at the MRTG Schema at <a
href="http://www.keytonature.eu/wiki/MRTG_Schema_v0.7" target="_blank">http://www.keytonature.eu/wiki/MRTG_Schema_v0.7</a>
for instance. A solution supporting export to a formal representation would be
ideal though if it came to the choice, accessibility should take priority.
Somewhere between Roger's lsid vocabularies and the MRTG schema page there must
be a way to achieve this.<br>
<br>
Is Semantic-mediawiki an option?<br>
<br>
greg<br>
<br>
On Thu, 2009-05-14 at 13:30, Lynette.Woodburn@csiro.au wrote:<br>
> Back to basics ...<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> Anyone new to biodiversity informatics (in general) and TDWG (in<br>
> particular) might be expected, as a first step, to seek a broad<br>
> understanding of the scope of the knowledge domain which is of<br>
> interest to the community they've just joined. Next, they're likely<br>
> to want to gain an understanding of each of the main concepts and to<br>
> discover how those concepts relate to one other. Delving yet deeper,<br>
> curiosity will lead them to seek details about features used by the<br>
> community to characterise each of those main concepts. So,
gradually,<br>
> it is anticipated that newcomers will gain an understanding of the<br>
> meaning associated by their fellow community members with elements<br>
> (concepts, features, relationships) within the knowledge domain.<br>
> (Those elements are, after all, the chief subjects of discourse<br>
> amongst community members.)<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> This fantastic voyage of discovery, these first steps into Aladdin's<br>
> Cave, ought to be made easy for any newcomer. Instead, TDWG presents<br>
> a dizzying array of perspectives on disparate subsets of elements<br>
> within the knowledge domain, often with only cryptic, tenuous links<br>
> binding them together. 'Horses-for-courses'-drivers clearly exist
for<br>
> these subsets, but where is the common community understanding of<br>
> where each element fits into the broader, shared knowledge domain<br>
> which is TDWG's scope?<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> I fully support any initiative which more effectively leads newcomers<br>
> (and not-so-newcomers) to that place: that place where I would hope to<br>
> find, in plain expressions devoid of techno-speak, a description of<br>
> each real world element (concept, feature, relationship), together<br>
> with a simple representation (a label?) by which the TDWG community<br>
> prefers each to be referred; that place which evolves, but endures,<br>
> independently of technological fashions and particular<br>
> implementations; that place I can visit to paint a picture in my<br>
> mind's eye of TDWG's own Aladdin's Cave.<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> Lynette Woodburn<br>
><br>
> Atlas of Living <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> ______________________________________________________________________<br>
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--<br>
<br>
<br>
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<br>
-- <br>
Robert A. Morris<br>
Professor of Computer Science<br>
UMASS-Boston<br>
<a href="mailto:ram@cs.umb.edu">ram@cs.umb.edu</a><br>
<a href="http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/">http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/</a><br>
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phone (+1)617 287 6466<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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