This page is about an taxonomic experts (meta)database

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Experts Database

Table of Contents

1. Overview
   1. Conclusion
2. Specification
   1. Data model
      1. Tabular Model
      2. Privacy Levels
   2. UML Model
3. Implementation
4. Release

Overview

The objective of this information service is to provide an efficient online information service on European Taxonomic experts, their expertise and ongoing and planned taxonomic research projects, building on existing services and content from previous efforts. The in-formation service is for internal as well as external use, but it will be designed (and con-tent collected) with high priority on meeting the needs for information by EDIT partners regarding:

• Provision of a better knowledge base for an integrated recruitment strategy in EDIT
• Taxonomic information backbone and Pan-European checklist activities of WP3
• Coordination of research organised by WP4 (especially regarding methodology)
• Formation of networks, committees and task-forces for WP6 and WP7 activities
• WP8s assessment of training resources for taxonomy in Europe

As agreed at the EDIT WP2 kick-off meeting in Paris, June 29 2006, the secretariat of the EDIT WP2 drafted an outline of:

• How to collect contents for the WP2 online information service on taxonomic experts, their expertise, and their ongoing and planned research
• An experts/expertise and project database structure, based on previous similar efforts

The draft has been reviewed by the WP2 partners, modified accordingly and formatted into this current draft which acts as the beginning of a specification of

• The form to enter or update data on experts
• The actual database structure behind the information service
• What the service (the product) should be able to do
• How we could achieve designing and implementing the service.

The product, a web-based information service on taxonomists, their fields of expertise and their interests / ongoing and planned research projects, should enable filtering and search facilities to find taxonomic experts based on any combination of criteria regarding:

• Their taxonomic expertise in 7 kinds of taxonomic activities (Enghoff &Seberg, 2006 and see below), within taxa - searchable by all levels down to family
• Geographic area(s) (countries, terrestrial areas, aquatic areas) their expertise relates to
• Environment of their taxonomic group (see elaboration below)
• Their ongoing taxonomic research
• National / International taxonomic research projects they are involved in
• Country they reside in
• Institution they work in

In order to find an existing system to fulfill the above roughly specified needs we started an intensive market screening and product survey on the internet. Hence we have initiated a collection of URLs for relevant existing services that contain data which could be in-cluded in the WP2 service – see http://www.connotea.org/user/icalabuig/tag/List%20taxonomic%20experts?num=100. This list should be heavily expanded, including the list of resources that keep catalogues of experts. Suggestions are most welcome!

Please note: The survey only included services which offer information related to taxon-omy / biodiversity, and did not include other e.g. commercial and / or off-the-shelf prod-ucts designed for other purposes (health sciences etc.).

Importantly, the German GTI-toolkits’ chapter Lists & databases on taxonomic experts will be explored further by the WP2 secretariat and hopefully, based on discussions with the German GTI focal point, selected content from this database may be included in the WP2 service.

In addition to relevant contents, the following services also have very relevant filter & query features and other functionality that have acted as inspiration for the WP2 service:

• ETI World Taxonomist Database: http://www.eti.uva.nl/tools/wtd.php, hosted and maintained by ETI – the Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification.
• DAISIE European Alien Species Expertise Registry http://daisie.ckff.si/

The portal contains special functionality, to our knowledge not covered by any of the other services, which we think would suit the needs of the WP2 information service – see elaboration below.

• “New Accession States” extension to Fauna Europaea, FaEu??-NAS http://zoology.fns.uniba.sk/faeu/search_service/search_index.htm
• Fauna Europaea experts database http://www.faunaeur.org/experts.php

Further services to explore for possible integration / linking / inspiration / migration of content etc. as per February 19, 2007, based on recent feed-back from EDIT WP2 partners:

• Walther Berendsohn: Recommends integrating with Index Herbariorum, http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/IndexHerbariorum.asp
• Marian Ramos: Possible import of data from SYNTHESYS matrix on experts, and fur-ther development/re-use of tools developed under Fauna Iberica, see http://faunaiberica.org/ to be explored further
• Jackie Van Goethem: The very recently released Belgian information service BioBel?? http://biobel.biodiversity.be/

Recently, it has been concluded that the Filemaker database on taxonomic expertise de-veloped by the German GTI focal Point matches the needs for the WP2 information service. Hence, a similar database application will be developed by EDIT WP5 for use in the EDIT network of institutions.

Conclusion

There might be several other splendid services out there, which the WP2 secretariat does not yet know about, but these are the main ones we have been able to find based on own search and a query among EDIT partner institutions. Based on the above market screening and information provided by product vendors and suppliers we must conclude that there are no current systems capable of fulfilling our main requirements. There may be systems or commercial products which might be able to fulfill our requirements by modification or adaptation of the system / product. We are not IT-literates though, and invite all kinds of comments and suggestions to solve this task of building an information service.

Specification

Data model

Tabular Model

For every expert the following metadata should be stored:

Name of major Tab	Name of category within Tab	Legend for text field to complete by expert	Comment	Optional/mandatory	Level of privacy	Discussion of design/implementation
Contact information	Name	First & middle name	Free text	Mandatory	Public	Explanatory text saying - Mandatory
		Last Name	Free text	Mandatory	Public	Explanatory text saying - Mandatory
		Title	Choose one from drop-down list	Mandatory	Public	Explanatory text saying - Mandatory
		Nickname	Free text	Optional	Public
	E-Mail	E-mail	List up to 5 addresses and choose one as Default through radio button.	Mandatory	Public	Explanatory text saying - Mandatory
	Institution / Organisation / University	Institution	Free text	Optional	Public
		Division / Department	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1
		Office	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1
		Institutional Acronym	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1
	Mailing Address	Street Address	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1
		Postal or ZIP code	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1
		City	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1
		Country	Choose one from drop-down list	Mandatory	Public	Would be good to be able to scroll in the drop down list. Also write one letter(e.g. ?D?) and it jumps in the menu (to e.g. Denmark). Explanatory text saying - Mandatory
		State / Province	Choose one from drop-down list created based on country selected	Mandatory	Restricted 1	Explanatory text saying - Mandatory
	Phone/Communications (including country code)	Phone		Optional	Restricted 1
		Mobile		Optional	Restricted 1
		Fax		Optional	Restricted 1
		Phone PA		Optional	Restricted 1
	Internet URL	Institutional / Project related www	Allow to list up to three URLs	Optional	Restricted 1
	year of birth			Mandatory	Restricted 2
	foreseen year of retirement from professional service as a taxonomist			Mandatory	Restricted 2
Taxa	Field of expertise	Taxa	Multiple-choice from drop-down list provided by DAISIE (listed in Excel, attached to mail). Also free text writing, with the restriction that the name is on the DAISIE list	Mandatory	Public	Explanatory text under box with drop-down list (is it called a legend?) should be ?Select a Taxon (hold down CTRL and click to multi- or deselect)? Is it possible to make a ?box? where the selected taxa is ?thrown? into (where you can click add or remove) from the drop-down list? Am I talking rubbish, or do you know what I mean? This way the user has an overview of what he/she has selected in stead of scrolling up and down. Explanatory text sayting - Mandatory.
Geography	Geographic range of expertise	Geographical range of expertise for ?name of chosen taxa?	Choose geographic range of expertise for each and every taxon which has been listed as field of expertise. Regarding Marine areas use list from DAISIE	Mandatory	Public	For terrestric areas, Markus suggested list from TDWG. I haven?t been able to find it. Insert name of taxa automatically to fill out the geographic range of expertise per pre-selected taxa. For marine areas, please use list from classification by BioBEL (check: http://biobel.biodiversity.be/biobel/search/classification) (is it possible to extract the marine areas of the list?. Explanatory text saying - Mandatory.
	Environment of taxonomic group	Environment of ?name of chosen taxa?	Select environment for study for each and every taxon listed as field of expertise	Mandatory	Public	Multiple-choice in a tick box. List from the Excel file ?Environment?. Insert name of taxa automatically to fill out the Environment per pre-selected taxa. Explanatory text saying - Mandatory.
Activity / Interest	Taxonomic activity	Taxonomic activity	Select one or several of the 7 kinds of taxonomic activity as outlined by Enghoff & Seberg 2007 - and do this for each and every taxon which has been listed as field of expertise . The 7 kinds are:	Mandatory	Public?????	Multiple-choice from list from Excel file ?Taxonomic activities? Tick box. Explanatory text saying - Mandatory.
	Methodology / Approach	Methodology / approach of ?name of chosen taxa?	Select one or several of the approaches listed in the Excel file ?M;ethodology Approach? for each and every taxon listed as field of expertise	Mandatory	Public?????	Multiple-choice. Insert name of taxa automatically to fill out the Methodology / approach per pre-selected taxa. Explanatory text saying - Mandatory.
	Ongoing / Planned research projects	Title of project	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1	It should be possible for the user to list as many projects as they wish in separate boxes by pushing a button saying ?add project?
		Ongoing project OR Planned project		Optional	Restricted 1	Select either ongoing project or planned project ? radio button. This should be possible for each project listed.
		Keywords	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1	For each listed project, free text keywords should be possible to write. As explanatory text ?E.g. taxa, geographic range, approach etc.?
		Partner / Persons / Institutions	Free text	Optional	Restricted 1	For each listed project, free text should be possible to write.

Privacy Levels

4 levels of privacy based on what information (data) each category of user can see:

• Private: No one can see the data. Useful to register for shibboleth?
• Restricted 2: Only for members of Board of Directors (BoD). They can see all the entered data
• Restricted 1: For EDIT project members (who are themselves registered in the database). They can see all entered data except age and foreseen retirement year.
• Public: All users can see only the mandatory entries.

Level of data privacy	User type allowed to see the data
	Everybody	EDIT project members	Board of Directors	(Shibboleth)
Private				x
Restricted 2			x
Restricted 1		x
Public	x

The following table shows the latest concept for the data structure together with the field based permissions. It is based on the former noted levels of privacy and on the suggested data structure above. The table shown is a html representation of the attached spreadsheet Fields, Roles & Permissions.xls.

Table	Field	Permissions				Person.Privacy settings
		Public = annonymous	General Editor	Institutional Editor	Owner	Public	ContactPrivate	Private	Custom (2)
user	picture	view	edit	edit	edit	view	-	-
	mail	view	edit	edit	edit	view	-	-
Person	Fullname	view	edit	edit	edit	view	view	view
	Name_aliases	view	edit	edit	edit	view	view	-
	Lifespan	-	-	edit	edit	-	-	-
	Retirement_year	-	-	edit	edit	-	-	-
	Privacy	-	view	view	edit	-	-	-
	Url	view	edit	edit	edit	view	-	-
	Email	view	edit	edit	edit	view	-	-
	Phone	view	edit	edit	edit	view	-	-
	Address	view	edit	edit	edit	view	-	-
InstitutionalMembership	*	view	view	edit	view	view	-	-
Institution	*	view	view	edit	view	view	view	-
TaxonInterest	Taxon	view	edit	edit	edit	view	view	-
	Georegion	view	edit	edit	edit	view	view	-
	Environment	view	edit	edit	edit	view	view	-
	Methodology	view	edit	edit	edit	view	view	-
	Activity	view	edit	edit	edit	view	view	-
	Hidden (1)	-	-	view	edit	-	-	-
Project	*	view	edit	edit	edit	view	view	-
(1) A user can choose to hide his own taxon Interests from the members of role Public and of role General Editor by selecting one of the default 'Person.Privacy settings' : Public, ContactPrivate, Private. (2) A implementation should be designed in such way that is is possible to extend the 'Person.Privacy settings' by a per user specific named Custom setting. In Custom mode the user can define individual setting for each of this fields.

Setting in the field Person.Privacy override the role based access setting for Public & General Editor where ever the permission view ist set for the specific role and field.









The tables Person and TaxonInterest require Fieldbased permissions.

The fields Address and Fullname actually consist of several subfields:

Address

• pobox
• street
• postcode
• locality
• region
• country

Fullname

• prefix
• forename
• surname
• suffix

UML Model

On base on tabular model above and on base of the GTI Taxonomists Database an UML diagram has been developed. This model has been used a base for discussion and as a stating point for initial development and has become obsolete

Implementation

The database will be implemented as a module for the content management system Drupal by wp5.

Developer notes on the implementation are found at the ExpertsDatabaseImplementationNotes page.

A first prototype is running at http://dev.e-taxonomy.eu/expertsdb/.

Release

The first release of the ExpertsDB is available as an zip archive expertsdb release v1.0 2009-01-27.zip. This archive bundles Drupal5 together with the expertsdb module and all other required modules and themes. For instructions on how to install the expertsDB please read EXPERTS_DB-INSTALL.txt which is found in the archive root.