Hi David,
I think a comprehensive registry of data providers, datasets and the services built on them would go a long way to achieve what you are looking for. To do that we need a good metadata profile for biodiversity data and GBIF has identified this as a priority over the next year. We also need to think beyond the immediate biodiversity realm to engage with the wider geospatial community in such activities as GEOSS. We have already registered the GBIF data portal REST services in the GEOSS registry and I have started discussions with TDWG about getting their standards registered.
Best regards,
Éamonn
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From: tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Shorthouse, David Sent: 30 September 2007 05:45 To: tdwg@lists.tdwg.org Subject: [tdwg] programmablebiodiversity.org ?
Now that GBIF is releasing lots of cool web services (thanks to Dave Martin, Tim Robertson, and others) and similar web services can be found in other organizations, ought we consider a www.programmableweb.com knock-off called something like www.programmablebiodiversity.org? This way, we can have a user-driven repository / show-and-tell for useful applications that can be built for the wider biodiversity informatics community. At the very least, this will provide some positive feedback for providers who can then point to examples of how the data can be used, mashed-up, or otherwise repurposed in imaginative ways. Plus, this could be like a communal grab-bag of tricks for organizations like EOL. If anyone wants to take the initiative on this, Ill most certainly contribute.
The kinds of things I am thinking of are Rod Pages iSpecies (http://ispecies.org) or my temporary, development knock-off using nothing but JSON (http://ispiders.blogspot.com/2007/09/ispecies-clone.html), or Rods bioGUID reference parser and my simple way to tap into this in real-time (http://tinyurl.com/ytqxo6), PygmyBrowse (http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1125451.1125562), etc.
Along the same sort of lines, the TDWG link to its Biodiversity Projects of the World is buried under Activities. Shouldnt this be front and center on the TDWG homepage?
Cheers,
David P. Shorthouse
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Department of Biological Sciences
CW-403, Biological Sciences Centre
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9
mailto:dps1@ualberta.ca
http://canadianarachnology.dyndns.org
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