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EDIT CDM Data Portal
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The EDIT Data Portal publishes taxonomic data data hosted in a CommunityStore
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either to a closed community or to the public at large. It has been implemented
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as a module for the content management system Drupal. The term
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{{{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system}content managent system}}
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is somewhat misleading here: since the actual content is stored and managed
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by the CDM, ensuring scientific accuracy and reusability of data. Drupal offers
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a great deal of flexibility and can be extended almost indefinitely, making it
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possible to adapt the EDIT Data Portal to the individual needs of a community.
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Custom web pages, forums, and blogs are only a few of Drupal's capabilities
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available out of the box, and there is practically no limit to the number of
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modules that can be added to enhance a site with for example image galleries.
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The layout and look and feel of the application can be easily adapted to fit
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any taste.
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The EDIT Data Portal supports zoological and botanical names (support for viral
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and bacterial names should be available soon), as well as multiple concurrent
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taxonomies. Rules as specified by the nomenclatural codes ICBN and ICZN are
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built into the CDM, ensuring that taxon names conform to these standards.
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User interface design was guided by the following design principles: provide
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easy access to all taxa and names; display all relevant information in one
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place where possible; and reduce complexity without compromising scientific
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accuracy. A challenge particular to taxonomy is keeping the user from losing
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his or her bearings while navigating through vast taxonomic trees; to this
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end, a sophisticated taxonomic tree browser has been developed to reduce
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confusion and make daily work with such trees more productive. A search
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function provides an additional way to access taxa.
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Each taxon is represented by an individual page, which displays the list
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of synonyms, related taxa, occurrences, descriptions, media, and more. The
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list of homotypic and heterotypic synonyms is ordered historically and grouped
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by types; its layout resembles that found in printed publications. Images of
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protologues and of type specimens are linked directly from taxon names and
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synonym lists. In addition, taxon pages will allow users to contribute
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annotations as text or images.
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Currently, EDIT Data Portals and CDM Community Stores are used to store and
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publish the work of the EDIT exemplar groups focusing on the taxonomic groups
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Cichorieae, Diptera and Palmae. Links to the demosites are found below.
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Drupal
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The open source content management system Drupal becomes more and more widely
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used in the area of biodiversity informatics. This popularity is not only
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due to its capabilities to just manage content for
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websites. The genius of what the Drupal community has done, is to reduce all
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of the aspects of social software to the core and then build a platform that
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could be infinitely extended to allow the assembly of almost any styles of
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online social interaction. During the past years the community contributed
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over 3000 different modules extending the Drupal core and thus on one hand
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providing a highly flexible construction kit and on the other hand showing by
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many examples that nearly everything is possible, perhaps only limited by the
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human imagination.
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The EDIT Data Portal has been developed as a drupal module to take the
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advantage of the community support and already available resources. Since we
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offer CDM Data Portal as a package with drupal together it is not necessary
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to spend extra time learning about drupal.
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~~Constructing the EDIT platform for cybertaxonomy
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~~ Drupal is used to build up
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~~ general web applications like forums, blogs, a central repository for users
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~~ and taxonomists, the Experts Database and a software tracker and rating
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~~ system. Last but not least also taxonomy related software like the
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~~ Scratchpads and the CDM DataPortal is based on this system.
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~~
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~~ The CDM DataPortal is using Drupal as an application framework to publish
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~~ taxonomic treatments to a closed community or to the public. The treatments,
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~~ stored in database are, accessible via web services to which the
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~~ CDM DataPortal connects to fetch the information to be displayed.
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~~ Furthermore does the CDM DataPortal act as an easy to use web service
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~~ allowing reusing fragments of its pages in other contexts already rendered
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~~ as HTML.
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~~
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~~ The new TDWG standards architecture relies among others on semantic web
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~~ technologies, which are tailored around a data format called RDF.
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~~ Unfortunately there has always been a lack of common tools for easy
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~~ processing and visualising data provided by the RDF based ontology.
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~~
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~~ Since the last big version switch to Drupal 6, some very interesting
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~~ modules are being simmered, which will allow storing, aggregating and
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~~ processing RDF data, making Drupal an highly interesting candidate for
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~~ building applications which benefit from the new semantic capabilities
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~~ of the TDWG standards architecture. Drupal is promising not only because
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~~ of the interesting technical implementations but also because of its
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~~ popularity and support from a vast community.
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~~
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~~ Some RDF related modules are already available although most of them
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~~ still are in alpha status. One of these incorporates RDF taxonomies
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~~ into Drupal, another one is actually an ensemble of modules providing
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~~ comprehensive RDF functionality and interoperability.
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~~
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~~ With Exhibit and Potluck the SIMILE (Semantic Interoperability of
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~~ Metadata and Information in unLike Environments) project of the MIT
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~~ has developed interesting tools for visualizing, browsing and mixing
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~~ data. Exhibit for example displays structured data in the form of rich
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~~ visualizations that can be searched, filtered and sorted using faceted
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~~ browsing. The Exhibit module will bring these abilities to Drupal.
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~~
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~~ Tools for efficiently using the TDWQG RDF ontology are in reach and
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~~ await their evaluation. So the time has come to find out what is
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~~ possible to vision the next generation biodiversity network tools.
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