- tdwg-mids - lists.tdwg.org

Thursday 28th August at 14:00 UTC - MIDS approach to missing data
by Elspeth Haston 28 Aug '25

28 Aug '25

Dear all In preparation for the expert review and the subsequent public review we have been focussing on some key areas of the MIDS standard which still had some questions remaining. One of these is the approach taken to handle specimens which have missing data and how these would be scored. We are therefore planning a special focus session of the regular MIDS meetings to be held on Thursday 28th August at 14:00 UTC. There are two main points here which relate to the users of MIDS - in particular, curators/collection managers and researchers. The proposed option in MIDS would enable any specimen to have the potential to reach MIDS3, meaning that a collection manager/curator could aim to have an entire collection digitised to MIDS3. However, researchers may expect all specimens at a certain MIDS levels to have 'informative' data in each required field, rather than an indication that the data are missing. It would therefore need to be made clear that reaching MIDS3 is not a guarantee of the quality of the data in the record, but rather a statement on the level of digitisation that has been carried out. This would be in alignment with the view that MIDS is not a measure of quality but of data presence or absence. Option 1 These specimens would reach MIDS3 if values were entered for missing data which do not match any proposed excluded values. Option 2 These specimens could potentially never achieve MIDS3 if the data were not available on the specimen label or associated literature. The proposed management of missing data in MIDS is presented below. Handling of unknown and incomplete data Best practice dictates that wherever possible data should not be published with empty field values as this is misleading for both human users and machines. There are many reasons why data can be missing, unknown, incomplete or explicitly withheld (Groom 2019) and various tactics have been used in the past to deal with such situations. However, with the increasing use of machines to interpret and act upon data, more consistent practices should be promoted. Entering values to provide information relating to the unknown or incomplete data available enables curators and researchers to make decisions about the relevant records. For curators and collection managers, knowing why the data are unknown may help the digitisation process, potentially indicating a different workflow from basic transcription. For researchers, it can help in highlighting records that need additional research to determine an unknown value or that may not be possible to include in a desired analysis. Unknown values for data information elements If information is missing or incomplete in the specimen record for any field mapped to a MIDS information element then it is recommended to enter one of the terms for missing data values proposed by Groom et al. (2019) (Table 5). For calculating the MIDS level, it would be possible to exclude some values as having insufficient non-null values. For example: "unknown", "unknown:undigitised", "known:undigitised", "NULL", whitespace only. There will be some questions that will need to be considered, and one of the largest of these relates to the translation of insufficient non-null values into different languages. In addition, some systems may not allow empty fields and an enforced missing data value would be automatically entered. In this case, the default value could be flagged for exclusion. We have a GitHub Discussion for everyone to participate even if you can't join the meeting. https://github.com/tdwg/mids/discussions/159 There is also a Googledoc for people to add comments and notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wlku5hoKLrFKWq9dL29D_cChB9PWw_fzQBJNwv5… With best wishes Elspeth and Cat MIDS Task Group Convenors [Logo] Dr Elspeth Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland rbge.org.uk<https://rbge.org.uk/> @emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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TDWG MIDS Working Group update
by Elspeth Haston 19 Jun '25

19 Jun '25

Dear MIDS community Thanks to a huge amount of work undertaken by many people over the years, we can all actively move forwards with the ratification process. It feels as if this is where we can all relax and take a step back, but in fact this process will almost certainly mean quite a bit of input will be needed over the next few months to make sure we reach the public review in good time with a really strong result. Firstly, the group had a very successful meeting with Sharon Grant, who has agreed to be the Review Manager for the ratification process. The panel of expert reviewers will be selected and invited in the coming weeks. There is likely to be a process in which there will be regular meetings with the reviewers with the aim to complete work they identify before the subsequent meeting. The MIDS website should contain everything needed for the expert and public review and it's looking good https://tdwg.github.io/mids/index.html There is currently some work being done to clarify which parts of MIDS and the website will be normative (content that is definitive and authoritative and require formal processes to change) and non-normative (content that is informative and can be changed more easily). The current thinking that the detailed mapping will not be normative which will make updating this to include new Darwin Core Extensions an easier process. There was a risk identified for the documents held in the Google folder, including the rolling meeting notes, so I have moved these into my own Google drive until a more formal place can be found for them. Everyone should be able to view the files here https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1xEof1yB_Cm1-HWGPKCnyLD9huB4dKMVV. Please request edit access if you don't currently have it. The aim is to start the review process with a relatively clean GitHub issues stack so there is a job to go through these to resolve and close them where possible. There are some issues that are labelled as "for review" and "help wanted" that are good options for everyone to look at. This is an exciting time for MIDS and great to see it all coming together in this way. The meetings will continue to be weekly over the summer. Lots of people will be taking holidays over this time but hopefully we will still be able to keep the progress going. Please join the meetings when you can Thursdays 14:00 UTC https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89321928120?pwd=tc1AG6KqCz5Sv0eca4nvFKF0Df8sja.1 Meeting ID: 893 2192 8120 Passcode: 459138 or follow from the meeting notes here https://docs.google.com/document/d/19ET0p6641ZNzNQG4qNs_jje0LokoKJ9Ls5bhFdU… or check the GitHub issues here https://github.com/tdwg/mids/issues Elspeth and Cat TDWG MIDS WG Convenors [Logo] Dr Elspeth Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland rbge.org.uk<https://rbge.org.uk/> @emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Thursday 22nd Meeting cancelled
by Elspeth Haston 21 May '25

21 May '25

Dear all Apologies for the short notice but we will not be meeting tomorrow, Thursday 22nd. We will meet again on Thursday 29th. Just a reminder for those who would like to be included as an author on the Living Data presentation, the deadline has been extended and we will be submitting the abstract by the 25th May. The link to add any comments and your name as a co-author is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aZmz4tVahZ4LwkXnMmh8EQH9MdbZ5kXZeH50PFg…. This will be presenting the results of all our work to date so it would be great to include as many people as possible. So many of you have contributed so much over the years! Best wishes Elspeth [Logo] Dr Elspeth Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland rbge.org.uk<https://rbge.org.uk/> @emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Cancelled: TDWG MIDS Task Group
by Elspeth Haston 21 May '25

21 May '25

Apologies for any duplication in sending this invitation through. Elspeth Haston is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89321928120?pwd=tc1AG6KqCz5Sv0eca4nvFKF0Df8sja.1 Meeting ID: 893 2192 8120 Passcode: 459138 --- One tap mobile +13017158592,,89321928120#,,,,*459138# US (Washington DC) +13052241968,,89321928120#,,,,*459138# US --- Dial by your location * +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) * +1 305 224 1968 US * +1 309 205 3325 US * +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) * +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) * +1 360 209 5623 US * +1 386 347 5053 US * +1 507 473 4847 US * +1 564 217 2000 US * +1 646 931 3860 US * +1 669 444 9171 US * +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) * +1 689 278 1000 US * +1 719 359 4580 US * +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) * +1 253 205 0468 US * +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Meeting ID: 893 2192 8120 Passcode: 459138 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/knnx5ANWd The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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FW: Living Data 2025 - deadlines extended; Proposed changes to Audiovisual Core
by Elspeth Haston 20 May '25

20 May '25

Dear all The deadline for the abstract has been extended until the 25th May. A reminder that if anyone would like to include their name as an author please go to the abstract document here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aZmz4tVahZ4LwkXnMmh8EQH9MdbZ5kXZeH50PFg… Best regards Elspeth From: TDWG Secretariat <secretariat(a)tdwg.org> Sent: 19 May 2025 19:36 To: Elspeth Haston <ehaston(a)rbge.org.uk> Subject: Living Data 2025 - deadlines extended; Proposed changes to Audiovisual Core View this email in your browser<https://mailchi.mp/tdwg.org/living-data-2025-deadlines-extended-proposed-ch…> [https://mcusercontent.com/50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6/images/923880a1-aac2-3c…] New deadline: Abstract submissions for Living Data 2025<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…> are extended until 25 May 2025 Abstract submissions are being accepted for oral presentations, lightning talks or posters and must be aligned to one of the accepted sessions<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…>. Abstract submission requirements: * Title: Maximum 20 words * Abstract: Maximum 300 words * Presentation types: Oral, lightning talk, or poster * Session: Choose from an available session * Authors: Include all contributing authors and their affiliations. New abstract submission deadline: 25 May 2025, 23:59 (UTC-5). Don't miss your opportunity to connect with biodiversity researchers, scientists, practitioners and experts from across the world at Living Data 2025!<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…> Join TDWG, GBIF, OBIS, GEO BON and Instituto Humboldt in Bogotá, Colombia from 21 to 24 October 2025! Submit your abstract<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…> Early bird registration deadline extended Early in-person and virtual registration for Living Data 2025 is now available until 1 July 2025, 23:59 (UTC-5). All attendees, session organizers, and presenters (both virtual and in-person) must be registered to participate in Living Data 2025. Discounted registration fees are available for participants from Global South countries. Learn more to see if your country qualifies for reduced rates. Registration information<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…> ________________________________ [https://mcusercontent.com/50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6/images/dd03da1b-0d8a-36…] Public review opened for new and changed terms of the Audiovisual Core, TDWG's standard for biodiversity-related images. TDWG's Audiovisual Core Maintenance Group<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…> would like to announce the start of the public review of proposed additions to the standard. The public comment period will remain open through at least 17 June, 2025. The additions are documented as GitHub issues with the tag "public comment" and can be accessed here<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…>. In summary, the proposed changes are: * Adding the terms ac:filterLowPass and ac:filterHighPass for bioaocustic recordings. * Adding the term ac:Digital3DResource to allow for 3D representations within Audiovisual Core in anticipation of the final proposals of the 3D Task Group. * Proposal to create a controlled vocabulary for content description. * Proposal to add ac:commentDate. [Twitter]<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…> [Facebook]<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…> [Website]<https://tdwg.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=50f3cc44307841383062ca0d6&id…> Copyright © 2025 Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), All rights reserved. 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Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Living Data Abstract - deadline 19 May
by Elspeth Haston 14 May '25

14 May '25

Dear all We will be hosting a symposium at the Living Data conference jointly with the OpenDS group (see the symposium abstract at the foot of this e-mail). We are submitting a presentation to provide an update on the current status of MIDS and would like to invite members of the TDWG MIDS task group to add their names as authors, recognising the work that you have done to get us to this point. Please add your names to the table in the abstract doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aZmz4tVahZ4LwkXnMmh8EQH9MdbZ5kXZeH50PFg…) making sure that you provide information for all headings in bold which are required. Please also feel free to add comments and suggestions to the draft abstract. We will be submitting the abstract by the 19th May so please add your name and make any suggestions before then. A copy of the abstract as it stands is below. Thanks again for all your input to help us achieve our current milestone of the MIDS website - and a massive thank you to Ben who has constructed the website. Please have a look and try it out (https://tdwg.github.io/mids/index.html) You can provide feedback using the GitHub issue https://github.com/tdwg/mids/issues/148. Best wishes Elspeth and Cat TDWG MIDS Task Group conveners Draft Abstract: What is the status of global digitisation? MIDS as an institutional & global digitisation standard The digitisation of the world's natural science collections is expanding massively and providing a unique global resource for answering some of the most fundamental bio- and geodiversity questions. However, digitisation at this scale can only be done in stages. The ability to measure and monitor the level of digitisation of each individual specimen, each collection within each country on a global scale has never been more important. The Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen (MIDS) specification along with the implementations which can calculate the MIDS score of specimens and collections, provide users with tools to help develop a digitisation strategy as well as plan, manage and monitor a digitisation programme, including prioritisation and data enhancement. The MIDS website (https://tdwg.github.io/mids/) provides access to the current draft, as well as links to tools for users to calculate MIDS scores for DWC and ABCD datasets, including the MIDS Calculator (https://github.com/AgentschapPlantentuinMeise/MIDSCalculator) Joint symposium abstract The open Digital Specimen (openDS) framework provides a standardized data model for digitally representing physical specimens and derived data, enabling seamless data sharing, integration, and reuse across global research infrastructures. This session will present key aspects of the openDS data model, highlighting its role in supporting the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), persistent identifiers and biodiversity information standards. A walkthrough and demonstration of the practical implementation of the openDS data model will be provided. The session will cover the integration of controlled vocabularies via a dedicated Vocabulary Server, ensuring semantic consistency and interoperability. Attendees will gain insights into how openDS can be leveraged for robust, scalable, and interoperable specimen data management, fostering a globally connected digital specimen network. The session will also present the Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen (MIDS) specification. The digitisation of the world's natural science collections is expanding massively and providing a unique global resource for answering some of the most fundamental bio- and geodiversity questions. The ability to measure and monitor the level of digitisation of each individual specimen, in each collection within each country has never been more important. MIDS, along with the implementations to calculate the MIDS score of specimens and collections, provides users with tools to help develop a digitisation strategy, and plan and manage a digitisation programme, including prioritisation and data enhancement. The session will show how MIDS, Darwin Core and ABCD (Access to Biological Collection Data) standards align with openDS, facilitating compatibility with existing biodiversity and earth science data infrastructures. By addressing vocabulary semantics and their role in data harmonization, this session will highlight the importance of standardized terminology in earth and natural sciences. [Logo] Dr Elspeth Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland rbge.org.uk<https://rbge.org.uk/> @emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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TDWG MIDS Task Group working session Thursday 17 April - Registration Reminder
by Elspeth Haston 15 Apr '25

15 Apr '25

Dear all The TDWG MIDS Task Group working session will take place this week. Please remember to register for the session HERE<https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/lHx6CcFVTveu-VbzJHSdcA>. Minimum Infor Dig Specimens (MIDS)<https://github.com/tdwg/website/blob/master/community/cd/mids> 2025-04-17 14:00 See in your time-zone<https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Minimum%20Infor%2…> ▶️<https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/lHx6CcFVTveu-VbzJHSdcA> UPDATE and WEBSITE! There will be a general update about the progress made and a chance to hear about the new draft TDWG MIDS website (https://tdwg.github.io/mids/index.html) TRY YOUR DATA! This is a great chance to bring along a dataset. You will get guidance and support to use the tools to calculate the level of digitisation of your dataset and get the MIDS scores. * Just bring along a Darwin Core Archive or a Biocase ABCD XML archive file to try out the MIDS Calculator Tool (https://github.com/AgentschapPlantentuinMeise/MIDSCalculator) * There may be time to download a file from GBIF at the working session if it's not too large, but we advise requesting the download beforehand to be safe. * Biocase files take longer to run so you may want to bring a smaller dataset if tryingthis option. * An installer for Windows can be found here<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ioRhHIvdYI88yoPTsYLG_k5-8n-05CiP>. The tool is an RShiny app and can also be run by executing the code in the app.R file. * You can also use the MIDS Checker for existing GBIF Datasets (https://naturalhistorymuseum.github.io/gamc/) TDWG Working Sessions timetable and links Link below for more information about all the TDWG Working Sessions, including a link to check the time of the session in your time-zone. website/community/working-sessions/2025/index.md at master · tdwg/website · GitHub<https://github.com/tdwg/website/blob/master/community/working-sessions/2025…> [https://opengraph.githubassets.com/22c40c178ab3f71f2ad7d4c13fc6eb0e8bfe4296…]<https://github.com/tdwg/website/blob/master/community/working-sessions/2025…> website/community/working-sessions/2025/index.md at master · tdwg/website<https://github.com/tdwg/website/blob/master/community/working-sessions/2025…> TDWG website. Contribute to tdwg/website development by creating an account on GitHub. github.com We are looking forward to seeing you there Best regards Elspeth and Cat TDWG MIDS Task Group Conveners The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk/> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Tomorrow's meeting
by Elspeth Haston 26 Feb '25

26 Feb '25

Dear all I'm afraid I will not be able to join the meeting tomorrow. Possible items to discuss would be: Comparing a dataset that has both DarwinCore and ABCD - can we get a dataset for this? https://github.com/tdwg/mids/issues/94 It might be an idea to update the website based on the updated docs before more people go in and review them Review current sitemap plan: https://github.com/tdwg/mids/tree/main/source/md https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QyN5FtDHe-9FGy-2SDKc0Yp6_PGdW3_x7Vogqaq… The Agenda and Notes document is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19ET0p6641ZNzNQG4qNs_jje0LokoKJ9Ls5bhFdU… I'm sorry I won't make it this week, but I will try to check e-mails in case anything comes up. Feel free to focus on different topics to those suggested here. Best wishes Elspeth [Logo] Dr Elspeth Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland rbge.org.uk<https://rbge.org.uk/> @emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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TDWG Living Data Conference 2025
by Elspeth Haston 14 Feb '25

14 Feb '25

Dear all There has been an extension to the deadline for proposals for sessions at the TDWG Living Data Conference 2025, giving us an opportunity to submit a proposal for a MIDS session. Please let myself and Cat know if you would be interested in co-chairing this session. We will be meeting tomorrow so you can also let us know then. This would be a good chance to present a range of talks looking at the broad application of MIDS, including the use of MIDS in planning digitisation programmes, the implementation of MIDS calculators in monitoring digitisation progress and to prioritise data enhancement, and how it can be used in funding proposals. Hope to see you at the meeting tomorrow at 15:00 UTC. Best wishes Elspeth The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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TDWG MIDS Task Group
by Elspeth Haston 16 Jan '25

16 Jan '25

Apologies for any duplication in sending this invitation through. Elspeth Haston is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89321928120?pwd=tc1AG6KqCz5Sv0eca4nvFKF0Df8sja.1 Meeting ID: 893 2192 8120 Passcode: 459138 --- One tap mobile +13017158592,,89321928120#,,,,*459138# US (Washington DC) +13052241968,,89321928120#,,,,*459138# US --- Dial by your location * +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) * +1 305 224 1968 US * +1 309 205 3325 US * +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) * +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) * +1 360 209 5623 US * +1 386 347 5053 US * +1 507 473 4847 US * +1 564 217 2000 US * +1 646 931 3860 US * +1 669 444 9171 US * +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) * +1 689 278 1000 US * +1 719 359 4580 US * +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) * +1 253 205 0468 US * +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Meeting ID: 893 2192 8120 Passcode: 459138 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/knnx5ANWd The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Happy New Year! Meetings for 2025 starting today
by Elspeth Haston 09 Jan '25

09 Jan '25

Happy New Year to all! I hope that everyone managed to have a bit of a break - it was a busy year in 2024! Apologies for not creating the new set of meetings before now but they have not been created and I'm hoping that an invitation was sent out automatically by Zoom. Please let me know if you have not received it. Just in case, the meeting can be found below. It will start at 15:00 UTC [cid:image001.png@01DB6285.A75660F0] Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89321928120?pwd=tc1AG6KqCz5Sv0eca4nvFKF0Df8sja.1 Meeting ID: 893 2192 8120 Passcode: 459138 --- One tap mobile +13017158592,,89321928120#,,,,*459138# US (Washington DC) +13052241968,,89321928120#,,,,*459138# US --- Dial by your location * +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) * +1 305 224 1968 US * +1 309 205 3325 US * +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) * +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) * +1 360 209 5623 US * +1 386 347 5053 US * +1 507 473 4847 US * +1 564 217 2000 US * +1 646 931 3860 US * +1 669 444 9171 US * +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) * +1 689 278 1000 US * +1 719 359 4580 US * +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) * +1 253 205 0468 US * +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Meeting ID: 893 2192 8120 Passcode: 459138 [Logo] Dr Elspeth Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland rbge.org.uk<https://rbge.org.uk/> @emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Meeting reminder - today
by Elspeth Haston 05 Dec '24

05 Dec '24

Dear all Just a reminder about the TDWG MIDS Task Group meeting today. We have been organising the work needed for the ratification of MIDS, deciding on some milestones and creating a schedule for some of the work. This are all being shared in the GitHub. Ideally, we will be using the MIDS Project part of the GitHub for this stage of working, everyone should now have access to this: https://github.com/orgs/tdwg/projects/4. The Tasks that are currently in here are also visible in the Issues part of the GitHub: https://github.com/tdwg/mids/issues. We will plan to use the first 30 minutes to discuss any issues, etc, and the second 30 minutes to tackle some of the work needed. As part of the plan to organise the work needed, we can prepare some agendas for future meetings so that there is a clearer focus for each meeting. Please let us know if there are key tasks that you would like us to look at on a particular week. This week (depending on people present) we will be looking at the following Issues: * Check access to MIDS Project: https://github.com/orgs/tdwg/projects/4/views/1 * Informative work * Add information to Wiki: https://github.com/tdwg/mids/wiki * Information mainly coming from Specification Development document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mc9sf8X8l8iSc-GO2ZFmgCoOiJNxKRhYeGq5OFm… * Normative work * MIDS Calculator/Checker functionality * Generalise functionality in the MIDS calculator to handle any DWCA file #92 https://github.com/tdwg/mids/issues/92 * MIDS Checker - Create conditional calculations for disciplines #97 https://github.com/tdwg/mids/issues/97 Best wishes Elspeth Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85039169478?pwd=QzIvam8xRy9CdFVtdEh3MDU3TFJydz09 [cid:0f048b13-49c2-468d-832d-355ef584801a] Best wishes Elspeth [Logo] Dr Elspeth Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland rbge.org.uk<https://rbge.org.uk/> @emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk/> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Reminder: TDWG MIDS Task Group meeting today
by Elspeth Haston 19 Sep '24

19 Sep '24

Dear all Just a reminder about the TDWG MIDS Task Group meeting today. We will aim to organise the work needed for the ratification of MIDS, deciding on some milestones and creating a schedule for some of the work. This will all be shared in the GitHub. Ideally, we will be using the MIDS Project part of the GitHub for this stage of working, but we have not yet been able to give everyone access to this: https://github.com/orgs/tdwg/projects/4. However, the Tasks that are currently in here are also visible in the Issues part of the GitHub: https://github.com/tdwg/mids/issues. We will plan to use the first 30 minutes to discuss any issues, etc, and the second 30 minutes to tackle some of the work needed. As part of the plan to organise the work needed, we can prepare some agendas for future meetings so that there is a clearer focus for each meeting. Please let us know if there are key tasks that you would like us to look at on a particular week. Best wishes Elspeth Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85039169478?pwd=QzIvam8xRy9CdFVtdEh3MDU3TFJydz09 [cid:image001.png@01DB0A8D.68D09C10] Best wishes Elspeth [Logo] Dr Elspeth Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland rbge.org.uk<https://rbge.org.uk/> @emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk/> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Meeting today
by Elspeth Haston 25 Jul '24

25 Jul '24

Dear all Just a reminder that we will be meeting today at the usual time of 14:00 UTC with the aim to get the information elements in place. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85039169478?pwd=QzIvam8xRy9CdFVtdEh3MDU3TFJydz09 Meeting ID: 850 3916 9478 Passcode: 912779 We have submitted a presentation for the TDWG/SPNHC conference which will be part of the following symposium https://www.tdwg.org/conferences/2024/sessions/#sym17, organised by Wouter and Anton. It would be good to also consider additional publications that we should be considering for MIDS to raise awareness. Best wishes Elspeth Dr Elspeth M Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://rbge.org.uk/> 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, Scotland, United Kingdom @emhaston | Google Scholar<https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=T3LgDsoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao> | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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GBIF API MIDS Calculator
by Josh Humphries 24 Jul '24

24 Jul '24

Hi all, As trailed in a previous meeting, I've finished putting together and deploying a little web app which uses the GBIF API to calculate MIDS scores. You can access it here: https://naturalhistorymuseum.github.io/gamc and the source is here: https://github.com/naturalhistorymuseum/gamc. From the home page just search and select your GBIF occurrence dataset, the app then runs some calculations by querying the GBIF API a few (~25) times, and then you'll see a couple of charts showing your dataset's record counts against the 4 MIDS levels as well as a more detailed breakdown of record counts by MIDS element. For example, here's the NHM London's breakdown<https://naturalhistorymuseum.github.io/gamc/dashboard/7e380070-f762-11e1-a4…>. For more info about how it works, check out the about page: https://naturalhistorymuseum.github.io/gamc/about. Specifically of interest to this group will be the how does it work<https://naturalhistorymuseum.github.io/gamc/about#how-does-it-work> section and the caveats<https://naturalhistorymuseum.github.io/gamc/about#caveats>. Any and all feedback welcome, including suggestions for changes (particularly around the mapping where we are somewhat limited, again see the caveats). The primary goal of this tool at the moment is to help people understand and explore their own MIDS scores, but when GBIF implement MIDS in their systems I fully expect it to become redundant. Additionally, it may be worth exploring a GeoCASe API based version of this too (and it would be pretty trivial to add I expect), though this may have limited usefulness given the discussion we had in the last meeting about the general lack of availability of datasets that cover all earth science disciplines. All the best, Josh ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Humphries (he/him) | Head of Science Data Platforms | Digital, Data & Informatics | NHM London Email: j.humphries(a)nhm.ac.uk

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FW: MIDS in GBIF - follow-up after TAG meeting
by Elspeth Haston 18 Jul '24

18 Jul '24

For information, we received this very positive e-mail from Cecilie confirming GBIF support for MIDS and interest in implementation. Elspeth ________________________________ From: Cecilie Svenningsen <csvenningsen(a)gbif.org<mailto:csvenningsen@gbif.org>> Sent: 05 July 2024 09:27 To: Elspeth Haston <EHaston(a)rbge.org.uk<mailto:EHaston@rbge.org.uk>> Cc: Tim Robertson <trobertson(a)gbif.org<mailto:trobertson@gbif.org>>; Marie Grosjean <mgrosjean(a)gbif.org<mailto:mgrosjean@gbif.org>> Subject: MIDS in GBIF - follow-up after TAG meeting You don't often get email from csvenningsen(a)gbif.org<mailto:csvenningsen@gbif.org>. Learn why this is important<https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification> Dear Elspeth, Thank you for the presentation on the MIDS progress at the TDWG Technical Architecture Group meeting last week. I wanted to follow up with you because you mentioned that GBIF had declared interest in implementing MIDS when ready, but I was not aware of the discussions at the time of the meeting and could not provide any feedback. I have now talked with people in the Secretariat who are more familiar with MIDS (cc in this email) and can confirm that GBIF would be interested in including MIDS to support community requests for the implementation. Specifically, we think it could be of value to implement in GRSciColl at the collection level. But before we can investigate implementing MIDS, we want to see a finalized specification of the calculation rules in place, that will be maintained externally to GBIF, and we hope TDWG can support those efforts. I understand you will have some follow-up discussions with TDWG after the meeting, but can I ask what your impressions are of how the standardization process in TDWG is going for the MIDS task group outputs? Kind regards Cecilie Cecilie Svenningsen (csvenningsen(a)gbif.org<mailto:csvenningsen@gbif.org>) Data Administrator, PhD GBIF Secretariat DENMARK URL: http://www.gbif.org<http://www.gbif.org/> The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk/> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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Reminder of MIDS meeting today
by Elspeth Haston 11 Jul '24

11 Jul '24

Dear all Just a reminder that we will be meeting today at the usual time of 14:00 UTC (about 15 minutes). We will aim to talk through the recent meeting with the TDWG TAG to determine the options for MIDS in light of the feedback. Hope to see you there. Best wishes Elspeth Dr Elspeth M Haston Deputy Herbarium Curator Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://rbge.org.uk/> 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, Scotland, United Kingdom @emhaston | Google Scholar<https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=T3LgDsoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao> | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848 Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh<https://www.rbge.org.uk> is a charity registered in Scotland (No SC007983) | Support Us<https://www.rbge.org.uk/support-us> This notice applies to this email and to any other email subsequently sent by anyone at RBGE and appearing in the same chain of email correspondence. References below to "this email" should be read accordingly. This e-mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential, may be protected by copyright and may be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, notify us immediately by reply e-mail, delete it and do not use, disclose or copy it. Unless we expressly say otherwise in this e-mail, this e-mail does not create, form part of, or vary, any contractual or unilateral obligation. No liability is accepted for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan attachments (if any). Where this e-mail is unrelated to the business of RBGE, the opinions expressed within this e-mail are the opinions of the sender and do not necessarily constitute those of RBGE. RBGE emails are filtered and monitored.

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