- tdwg-tag - lists.tdwg.org

Re: [tdwg-tag] [tdwg-content] canonicalScientificName
by Peter Desmet 14 Mar '12

14 Mar '12

Hi Donald, I just don't understand why an additional field canonicalScientificName (much like minimumElevationInMeters or countryCode) would create or shift the problem. It has a clear and easy to understand definition [1]. As a data provider I can assess if its too much of a bother to populate the field in addition to the more lenient scientificName (just like countryCode, etc.) and as a data user I can complain or ignore the data if I see the provider didn't follow the definition. This discussion resurfaces every time: clearly users would like to have this. So why do we make it difficult for those users and the data providers who can provide it? Peter [1] http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=150 I could even add "[...] it will contain one, two or three words" (see email Jessie Kennedy) PS: Yes, some people probably interpret scientificName as "Give us the cleanest representation of the scientific name you have", but that is definitely not the Darwin Core definition. It's more "give us the most verbose representation of the scientific name you have", which is what I use and what I advise all data publishers in my network to use. The difference doesn't matter though, the important thing is that a data user cannot expect this term to be a canonical representation of the name. On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 13:36, Donald Hobern (GBIF) <dhobern(a)gbif.org>wrote: > Hi Rod.**** > > ** ** > > Given the two alternatives you offer, I fully agree. However (and I may > be very wrong on this), I don’t actually believe that what you describe is > what is happening in most cases. I believe that the scientificName field > should always be the “give us the cleanest representation of the scientific > name you have” and we could certainly provide a more useful set of > priorities for how that is defined. Regardless of what the DwC guidelines > say, I think many data providers simply map their most closely aligned > database column into the DwC view and we get whatever that happens to be, > with whatever authorship it may contain.**** > > ** ** > > I’d agree that the clean name is much closer to what a web-enabled > linked-data world needs and would happily endorse a move to make that the > recommended form. I just honestly believe that many providers will always > give us something different. Adding a new field will just shift the > problem.**** > > ** ** > > At least that’s my perspective…**** > > ** ** > > All the best,**** > > ** ** > > Donald**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------**** > > Donald Hobern - GBIF Director - dhobern(a)gbif.org **** > > Global Biodiversity Information Facility http://www.gbif.org/ **** > > GBIF Secretariat, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark**** > > Tel: +45 3532 1471 Mob: +45 2875 1471 Fax: +45 2875 1480**** > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------**** > > ** ** > > *From:* tdwg-content-bounces(a)lists.tdwg.org [mailto: > tdwg-content-bounces(a)lists.tdwg.org] *On Behalf Of *Roderic Page > *Sent:* Wednesday, March 14, 2012 5:50 PM > *To:* TDWG Content Mailing List > *Subject:* Re: [tdwg-content] canonicalScientificName**** > > ** ** > > Dear Donald,**** > > ** ** > > I couldn't disagree more!**** > > ** ** > > It seems to me that this is one case where needs of consumers and > providers align pretty well.**** > > ** ** > > If I'm publishing data I want to avoid hassle, and one hassle is finding > the taxonomic authorities for names. Then there is the issue of how to > write the authority. There are so many variables: do I include diacritic > characters? is the person's name abbreviated? what is the correct date? > should I use parentheses? should I use commas? If I can just publish the > canonical name life is simpler.**** > > ** ** > > As a consumer I can't trust people to get the authority right. Publishers > get the taxonomic names wrong, and they will certainly make a mess of the > authority.**** > > ** ** > > So, if we mandate clean names we are saying to providers "give me this"*** > * > > ** ** > > <taxonomic name>**** > > [some scope for crap]**** > > ** ** > > Instead, we've mandated "give me this"**** > > ** ** > > <taxonomic name> + <authority>**** > > [some scope for crap] + [huge scope for crap]**** > > ** ** > > Why? Why would we do this to ourselves? Why do we think it's OK to have > databases full of duplicates such as these (from the ION database)?:**** > > ** ** > > Pseudopaludicola Miranda Ribeiro 1926**** > > Pseudopaludicola Mir. Ribeiro 1926**** > > Pseudopaludicola Miranda-Ribeiro 1926**** > > ** ** > > One consequence of this is that we have projects like > http://globalnames.org project, which is essentially collecting endless > variations on authority strings. In other words, trying to clean up a mess > essentially of our own making. **** > > ** ** > > By all means have a field for taxonomic authority, but keep that separate > from the canonical taxonomic name. In the real world, the canonical name is > what people use. If we want people to make data available, make it simple. > If we want people to use data make it simple.**** > > ** ** > > Regards**** > > ** ** > > Rod**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > On 14 Mar 2012, at 11:16, Donald Hobern wrote:**** > > > > **** > > Hi Peter.**** > > ** ** > > I certainly sympathise with the desire for a readily-consumed naked > scientific name field. However, unless the canonicalScientificName element > is enforced as a mandatory field (which would in itself impact some data > publishers and may prevent them validly sharing their data without extra > work to provide clean scientific names), it will be yet another element > which data consumers must check. If canonicalScientificName is supplied, > consumers will still need to handle cases where it is malformed. If is not > supplied, they will need to ignore the record or else do precisely what > they do today with the scientificName field. **** > > ** ** > > I therefore worry that adding this field could in fact make the task more > complex, rather than simpler, for data consumers.**** > > ** ** > > Thanks,**** > > ** ** > > Donald**** > > **** > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------**** > > Donald Hobern - GBIF Director - dhobern(a)gbif.org**** > > Global Biodiversity Information Facility http://www.gbif.org/**** > > GBIF Secretariat, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark**** > > Tel: +45 3532 1471 Mob: +45 2875 1471 Fax: +45 2875 1480**** > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------**** > > _______________________________________________ > tdwg-content mailing list > tdwg-content(a)lists.tdwg.org > http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content**** > > ** ** > > --------------------------------------------------------- > Roderic Page > Professor of Taxonomy > Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine > College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences > Graham Kerr Building > University of Glasgow > Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK > > Email: r.page(a)bio.gla.ac.uk > Tel: +44 141 330 4778 > Fax: +44 141 330 2792**** > > Skype: rdmpage > AIM: rodpage1962(a)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**** > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > tdwg-content mailing list > tdwg-content(a)lists.tdwg.org > http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content > > -- Peter Desmet Biodiversity Informatics Manager Canadensys - www.canadensys.net Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre 4101 rue Sherbrooke est Montreal, QC, H1X2B2 Canada Phone: 514-343-6111 #82354 Fax: 514-343-2288 Email: peter.desmet(a)umontreal.ca / peter.desmet.cubc(a)gmail.com Skype: anderhalv Public profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterdesmet

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Re: [tdwg-tag] Canonical name parsing
by Peter Desmet 14 Mar '12

14 Mar '12

Hi Tim, I agree, aggregators like GBIF and Canadensys will have to deal with clean and dirty data in each field anyway: they need code libraries to deal with this and it is good that these are being developed. But, that doesn't help someone who wants to use data from a Darwin Core Archive with his data in Excel or a Roderic Page who wants to get things done for a prototype. Having to use Java libraries or even the Name Parser [1] (though both great) is a barrier to data use. Darwin Core (Archives) is not only used for machine to machine interaction, humans use it too, and I think we should allow easy hacking (I mean this in the good sense), especially for something as important as the scientific name. In addition, as a data publisher (e.g. for our VASCAN checklist) I *do* have the information to provide a clean and simple to use canonicalScientificName, but I just can't share it via the otherwise excellent biodiversity sharing standard Darwin Core. I think that's a pity. Peter [1] http://tools.gbif.org/nameparser/ [2] http://data.canadensys.net/vascan PS: Yes, Canadensys will use the GBIF interpretation libraries. Since we develop in Java as well, using those libraries is as easy as the proverbial "one line of code". We're looking forward in testing them and providing patches to enhance them. Open source FTW! :-) On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 07:32, Tim Robertson [GBIF] <trobertson(a)gbif.org> wrote: > Hi Peter, > > I'm replying off the TDWG list, since it is a bit of a tangent to your discussion. If you feel it is relevant, please CC the list again. > > At GBIF as you know, we have to interpret all kinds of quality of content. I tend to agree with Donald that this would not really help in consumption, as in my experience we will have to deal with both clean and dirty data in each field *anyway* when this is used at network scale. I would rather see us evolve the interpretation libraries to handle all the corner cases, which we need to develop anyway. We already do a pretty decent job at extracting canonicals. This is further enhanced when you couple the extracted canonical with a fuzzy match against the "authoritative names" we can now index thanks to the availability of checklists in DwC-A format. > > I know you are a Java shop. Are you using the GBIF interpretation libraries [1] at the moment? If not, is there a reason why you don't? > They are used in all GBIF projects (portal, checklistbank etc), and the more we enhance them, the better it is for everyone. We have a significant test coverage [2,3] and there have been quite some man months (years?) spent already in their development and with some real regular expression experts (most notably Markus D. and Dave M.). All our work is Maven-ized, versioned and available in our Maven repository [4]. > > I hope these are interesting to you. We would welcome any patches to enhance them, or assistance in identifying the corner cases and capturing those as unit tests. > > Hope this helps, > Tim > > [1] http://code.google.com/p/gbif-ecat/source/browse/trunk/ecat-common/src/main… > [2] http://code.google.com/p/gbif-ecat/source/browse/trunk/ecat-common/src/test… > [3] http://code.google.com/p/gbif-ecat/source/browse/trunk/ecat-common/src/#src… > [4] http://repository.gbif.org/index.html#nexus-search;quick~ecat-common > -- Peter Desmet Biodiversity Informatics Manager Canadensys - www.canadensys.net Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre 4101 rue Sherbrooke est Montreal, QC, H1X2B2 Canada Phone: 514-343-6111 #82354 Fax: 514-343-2288 Email: peter.desmet(a)umontreal.ca / peter.desmet.cubc(a)gmail.com Skype: anderhalv Public profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterdesmet

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Applications open for iEvoBio 2012 Travel Awards
by Nico Cellinese 12 Mar '12

12 Mar '12

The 2012 conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio) is offering limited funds for travel expenses for the 2012 iEvoBio meeting in Ottawa, Canada. Preference will be given to participants lacking sources of funding for meeting attendance, such as graduate students, emerging professionals, and participants from underrepresented groups and countries. Please explain in an attached document the need for funding, the benefit that attending iEvoBio will afford you and how you will contribute to the meeting (max 350 words). We are looking for do-ers! A brief letter of support from your advisor, supervisor, or professional mentor should be submitted to the organizing committee (electronically), together with the application headed by the information below, to travelaward(a)ievobio.org by the deadline of 15 April 2012. Participants are required to make all their own travel arrangements, including visas and lodging, if required. Application format: Name: Contact information (address/phone/email): Academic Institution: Role (student, researcher, etc.): Origination of travel (if different from home institution) and estimated travel expenses: Explain the benefit that attending iEvoBio will afford you and what you will bring to the meeting (350 words or less):

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Call for Abstracts open for Conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio)
by Nico Cellinese 03 Mar '12

03 Mar '12

The Call for Abstracts for full talks is now open for the 2012 conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio), at http://ievobio.org/ocs2/index.php/ievobio/2012. See below for instructions. Accepted talks will be 15 minutes in length and will be presented during the full talk session of the conference. Because the number of program slots for full talks is limited, some talks may be moved to the Lightning Talk session (5 minutes in length). Submitted talks should be in the area of informatics aimed at advancing research in phylogenetics, evolution, and biodiversity, including new tools, cyberinfrastructure development, large-scale data analysis, and visualization. Submissions should be 1 page long at most and include a title, a list of contributors, and an abstract. The abstract should provide an overview of the talk's subject, and give enough detail to allow reviewers to decide whether the submission merits a full talk, or whether it should be moved to a Lightning Talk session. If the subject of the talk is a specific software component for use by the research community, the abstract must state the license and give the URL where the source code is available so reviewers can verify that the open-source requirement(*) is met. The deadline for submission is April 2, 2012. We intend to notify authors of accepted talks before early registration for iEvoBio (and Evolution) ends. Further instructions for submission are at the following URL: http://ievobio.org/ocs2/index.php/ievobio/2012/schedConf/cfp Full talks are one of the five kinds of contributed content that feature in iEvoBio. The other four are: 1) Lightning talks (5 mins long), 2) Challenge entries, 3) Software bazaar demonstrations, and 4) Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings. The Call for Challenge entries is already open (see http://ievobio.org/challenge.html). The calls for contribution to the other three sessions will open later, and will remain open until shortly before the conference or until the respective track fills up. In addition, 2012 iEvoBio sponsor Biomatters Ltd will be running the Geneious Challenge alongside this year’s iEvoBio Challenge, see http://ievobio.org/geneious_challenge.html for more information. More details about the conference and program are available at http://ievobio.org. You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/iEvoBio and Google+ page, or subscribe to the low-traffic iEvoBio announcements mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/ievobio-announce. iEvoBio 2012 is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and by Biomatters Ltd., in partnership with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and the Systematic Biologists (SSB). The iEvoBio 2012 Organizing Committee: Hilmar Lapp, US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (chair) Robert Beiko, Dalhousie University Nico Cellinese, University of Florida and Florida Museum of Natural History Robert Guralnick, University of Colorado at Boulder Rebecca Kao, Denver Botanic Gardens Ellinor Michel, Natural History Museum, London Nadia Talent, Royal Ontario Museum Andrea Thomer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (*) iEvoBio and its sponsors are dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of Open Source software development (see http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php) and reuse within the research community. For this reason, if a submitted talk concerns a specific software system for use by the research community, that software must be licensed with a recognized Open Source License (see http://www.opensource.org/licenses/), and be available for download, including source code, by a tar/zip file accessed through ftp/http or through a widely used version control system like cvs, Subversion, git, Bazaar, or Mercurial. Authors of full talks who cannot meet this requirement at the time of submission should state their intentions, and are advised that the requirement must be met by July 9, 2012, at the latest.

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iEvoBio conference, July 10-11, 2012
by Nico Cellinese 02 Mar '12

02 Mar '12

Dear All, The official website of iEvoBio 2012 is now open (www.ievobio.org). The 2 days conference will be held in conjunction with the annual Evolution meeting in Ottawa on the 10-11 July, 2012. Note that the program includes two exciting challenges and much more! We hope to see you in Canada! Cheers, NIco <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Nico Cellinese, Ph.D. Assistant Curator, Botany & Informatics Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Biology Florida Museum of Natural History University of Florida 354 Dickinson Hall, PO Box 117800 Gainesville, FL 32611-7800, U.S.A. Tel. 352-273-1979 Fax 352-846-1861 http://cellinese.blogspot.com/

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Specimen identifiers
by Roderic Page 29 Feb '12

29 Feb '12

I've recently written an number of posts on the implications of the lack of specimen-level identifiers, which makes it very hard to link different sources of data together, such as GBIF and Genbank http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/02/linking-gbif-and-genbank.html , and are also a factor in creating duplicate records in GBIF http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-many-specimens-does-gbif-really.html I know this is something of a hobby horse of mine, but we can have all the wonderful ontologies and vocabularies we want, if we don't have globally unique, shared identifiers to glue this stuff together we are going to find ourselves making yet more silos... Regards Rod --------------------------------------------------------- Roderic Page Professor of Taxonomy Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences Graham Kerr Building University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK Email: r.page(a)bio.gla.ac.uk Tel: +44 141 330 4778 Fax: +44 141 330 2792 AIM: rodpage1962(a)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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Re: [tdwg-tag] Specimen identifiers [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
by Roderic Page 27 Feb '12

27 Feb '12

Dear Dusty, On 27 Feb 2012, at 16:44, DLMcDonald wrote: > GBIF URIs are cheap - why not get a couple?! > > Along with museums randomly publishing their specimens a few times, others often (re)publish specimen data. http://data.gbif.org/occurrences/146112485/ and http://data.gbif.org/occurrences/210282234/ are both "copies" of http://arctos.database.museum/guid/UAM:Mamm:29830, which is the primary, current specimen data, for example. There's no obvious link between the three records. The NatureServe record was (apparently) taken from the literature, the other was provided by the specimen owner but is cached at GBIF and very much abridged to fit DWC. I think there are probably many more "reported sightings" (from literature, checklists, "known" specimens at other museums, etc.) than specimen-backed data records in GBIF, especially for things like insects, and I think most GBIF data are probably severely out of sync with the primary data, if such a thing exists. I have no idea what any identifier could do about that - inspire false confidence, perhaps. > > I can't really think of a worse "authority" than GBIF, at least from a museum/specimen perspective. It's clear that GBIF has issues, especially with duplicate records. Tim Roberston has given a detailed explanation of the reasons GBIF struggles with this http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-many-specimens-does-gbif-really.html…. From my experience, problems include (a) museums changing the metadata for specimens (e.g., changing a the collection code form 'Bird' to 'Birds') and (b) lack of internal identifiers that are invariant when the metadata changes. It's also clear that the same records are being aggregated several times, some via "primary" sources (e.g., the museum's DiGiR provider) and some via "secondary" sources. Much of the specimen-level digital infrastructure we have has no notion of identifiers, hence no easy way to avoid duplicates. Yes GBIF is problematic, but the one big advantage from my point of view is I want to go to one place and get information on specimens. I don't want to have to discover where I get this information from, then figure out how to retrieve it. If I'm matching 100,000s of records I want one place to do this for me. The analogy I often use is CrossRef, which has metadata for millions of scientific articles. If I want to locate the DOI for an article I don't have to figure out which publisher published the article and how I talk to their database, I simply ask CrossRef what the DOI is using a simple API. This is how the linked reference list at then end of a paper are generated. I want something similar for specimens. > > A small community of us have implemented a very successful URL "guid" model. If anyone has another specimen identifier that gets more inter-system use, I don't know about it. It's also pretty handy, if far from perfect, for finding things on the internet. (http://goo.gl/WRe6p should find the specimen listed above, for example.) We've worked closely with GenBank in developing this system, and even in the case of things like authors not bothering to tell us about publications we can use the GUID to automagically find specimens/sequences in each other's systems. I think it's about as good as URIs can get. And it's not very good. We're always a bad administrative decision or two from doing something we'll regret, and we've learned most of whatever we know by getting it wrong the first time(s). I cringe every time I see http://arctos.database.museum/SomeSupposedlyForeverURL in a static medium (http://goo.gl/8szEv). > > tl;dr: There is a strong need for something beyond URLs, but there are scary social problems to address. > > -Dusty I guess this model is one reason David Schindel likes Darwin Core triplets. Being able to construct a URL from metadata is nice, but looking at the history of GBIF data lots of museums like to change this metadata, which makes the URLs fragile (or at least, potentially breaks attempts infer the URL from the metadata). Then there's the issue of global uniqueness of these codes. The thing I find somewhat bemusing in all of this is that we are far from the first people to face these problems. The publishing industry has the same issues, and they ended up having centrally-managed identifiers (DOIs) that use redirection to hide the underlying URLs, so the individual publishers can muck about with the platforms they use to serve the data without breaking things for users. It seems to me that any system that links using URLs has to have a strategy for handling URLs changing (because it's pretty clear museums have virtually no ability to keep URLs from changing). If you accept that, then I think the way forward becomes pretty clear. GBIF is our CrossRef. Regards Rod > > On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 8:41 PM, Paul Murray <pmurray(a)anbg.gov.au> wrote: > > The question is - who has the job of declaring what the "original URI" is for existing specimens that already have a history? And what should that URI be? Perhaps this is where GBIF-issued ids become important. Or perhaps we could ditch the idea of "original URI", and just track the "GBIF URI". It's the responsibility of anyone with a specimen that does not already have a GBIF URI to get one for it. > > --------------------------------------------------------- Roderic Page Professor of Taxonomy Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences Graham Kerr Building University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK Email: r.page(a)bio.gla.ac.uk Tel: +44 141 330 4778 Fax: +44 141 330 2792 AIM: rodpage1962(a)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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Fwd: HCLS IG Note on mapping and publishing life sciences RDF
by Hilmar Lapp 16 Dec '11

16 Dec '11

This is chiefly for the RDF/OWL Task Group (I thought there was a separate mailing list for this, but given that now I can't find any, perhaps not?). You may remember that I cited an article on best practices in interoperable RDF data publishing in the life sciences that I had hoped we could work off of for a TDWG community-tailored best practices note. This has now been turned into an W3C Interest Group note, and is thus public. If you have not seen this before, it may provide for interesting reading and stuff to discuss as for applicability to biodiversity science data. -hilmar Begin forwarded message: From: "M. Scott Marshall" <mscottmarshall(a)gmail.com> Date: December 16, 2011 10:13:55 AM EST To: HCLS <public-semweb-lifesci(a)w3.org>, linkedlifedatapracticesnote(a)googlegroups.com , biohackathon(a)googlegroups.com Subject: [biohackathon:372] HCLS IG Note on mapping and publishing life sciences RDF Reply-To: biohackathon(a)googlegroups.com Dear Colleagues, With data sharing becoming more widely known and accepted, the need for the means to accomplish data sharing *in practice* is an important technical challenge. The Linked Open Drug Data task force in HCLS has attempted to address this need by developing a DRAFT IG Note regarding practices for mapping and linking life science data using RDF. The document, largely based on a recently submitted article, is being staged as a Google Doc for your review and comment[1]. In the draft document above, we attempt to supply a guide for those who would like to produce and publish data in RDF. We would like you to lend us your extensive expertise and would very much appreciate and carefully consider your candid comments, questions or suggestions to improve the note. Ideally, someone with basic knowledge of the Semantic Web stack and the desire to 'publish' linked data will be able to get started from this online document. We have removed the use case descriptions to make it more 'W3C note-like' (concise). The use case descriptions will be available in an article (in review) that covers much of the same material (pre-prints available on request). Kind regards, M. Scott Marshall LODD Chair, on behalf of the LODD Editors and Contributors IG Note (Draft) [1]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XzdsjCfPylcyOoNtDfAgz15HwRdCD-0e0ixh2… P.S. Lee Harland just alerted me to a relevant resource that we will probably cite or otherwise integrate into the above note: Looks very interesting: Interactively Mapping Data Sources into the Semantic Web (presented at ISWC) http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-783/paper2.pdf -- =========================================================== : Hilmar Lapp -:- Durham, NC -:- informatics.nescent.org : ===========================================================

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Re: [tdwg-tag] TAG meeting notes
by Chuck Miller 24 Oct '11

24 Oct '11

Kevin, Sorry I had to miss about half of the discussion. This document helps me to catch up. I think we have a "Super Architecture" issue for TDWG. I do not understand what the overall model of TDWG standards is. Where are we going? Attempting to follow the threads of TDWG activities and priorities of the 90s through the 00s to the 10s is super difficult. The fundamental premises of TDWG have been thrashed and mashed to the point that I defy anyone to explain it. We have bits and pieces of new "standards" and shards of relics of "standards." We have something like 15 Interest Groups in works! The same problems have been described over and over during the last 25 years with different labels. Until we have some clearer idea of what the heck we're doing, I can see a lot of spinning and resulting dizziness ahead, and probably newer labels for old problems. I think we need to rise above all of it somehow and look down. How? I think we should start by ignoring technologies and go back to fundamentals. Old fashioned modeling of a problem space would be a place to start. We need a "super model" or something. JW's suggestion of inventorying DwC and using that to analyze the overall classes in biodiversity informatics is one method to start, but that implies DwC is biodiversity-informatics-comprehensive and I'm not sure it's there yet. But, it is a place to start. Chuck -----Original Message----- From: tdwg-tag-bounces(a)lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Richards Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 6:32 PM To: Technical Architecture Group mailing list Subject: [tdwg-tag] TAG meeting notes Hi all I have created a google site at https://sites.google.com/site/tdwgtag/ This has one page in it so far for the meeting notes of today and Mondays meetings. Can you review and let me know if anything has been missed or needs to be changed. Let me know if you want access to edit the page and I will give you edit access. Kevin Please consider the environment before printing this email Warning: This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential. If you receive it in error: (i) you must not read, use, disclose, copy or retain it; (ii) please contact the sender immediately by reply email and then delete the emails. The views expressed in this email may not be those of Landcare Research New Zealand Limited. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz _______________________________________________ tdwg-tag mailing list tdwg-tag(a)lists.tdwg.org http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag

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Re: [tdwg-tag] TAG meeting notes
by Kevin Richards 20 Oct '11

20 Oct '11

Thanks Ben. Very good points. Most of which, I hope, we intend to implement/do. It is certainly the intention to have TAG members made up of TAG core members, other IG conveners, TG conveners, etc, etc..., so should have a good variety of people within the group. To "understand that process" is another thing, which we are trying hard to deal with, and not absolutely certain how to deal with. Probably things like standards development guidelines, best practices, how to apply standards back to a "core ontology" ... Kevin ________________________________________ From: Richardson, Ben [Ben.Richardson(a)dec.wa.gov.au] Sent: Friday, 21 October 2011 2:56 p.m. To: Kevin Richards Subject: RE: TAG meeting notes Hi Kevin, I favour the approach that we adopted a few years ago, namely publishing documents explaining how to get things done through TDWG (http://www.tdwg.org/standards/status-and-categories/). The task of building a TS, AS, BCP or DS should be run through a group formalised to do that job. TAG members could (should) be in both the TAG as well as other groups (aren't we all?) and can keep the process moving in a group by helping the group understand that process. Cheers, Ben -----Original Message----- From: tdwg-tag-bounces(a)lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Richards Sent: Friday, 21 October 2011 7:32 To: Technical Architecture Group mailing list Subject: [tdwg-tag] TAG meeting notes Hi all I have created a google site at https://sites.google.com/site/tdwgtag/ This has one page in it so far for the meeting notes of today and Mondays meetings. Can you review and let me know if anything has been missed or needs to be changed. Let me know if you want access to edit the page and I will give you edit access. Kevin Please consider the environment before printing this email Warning: This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential. If you receive it in error: (i) you must not read, use, disclose, copy or retain it; (ii) please contact the sender immediately by reply email and then delete the emails. The views expressed in this email may not be those of Landcare Research New Zealand Limited. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz _______________________________________________ tdwg-tag mailing list tdwg-tag(a)lists.tdwg.org http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag This email, together with any attachments, is intended for the addressee only. It may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, please notify the sender, delete the email and attachments from your system and destroy any copies you may have taken of the email and its attachments. Duplication or further distribution by hardcopy, by electronic means or verbally is not permitted without permission. Please consider the environment before printing this email Warning: This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential. If you receive it in error: (i) you must not read, use, disclose, copy or retain it; (ii) please contact the sender immediately by reply email and then delete the emails. The views expressed in this email may not be those of Landcare Research New Zealand Limited. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz

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