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Andreas Kohlbecker, 09/25/2007 06:45 PM


This page is about an taxonomic experts (meta)database


Experts Database

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:

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.

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:

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

For every expert the following metadata should be stored:

#!CSV
Name of major Tab   Name of category within Tab Legend for text field to complete by expert Comment Discussion of design/implementation 
Contact information Name    First & middle name     Free text   
        Last Name   Free text   
        Title   Choose one from drop-down list  
        Nickname    Free text   
    E-Mail  E-mail  List up to 5 addresses and choose one as Default through radio button.  
    Institution / Organisation / University     Institution     Free text   
        Division / Department   Free text   
        Office  Free text   
        Institutional Acronym   Free text   
    Mailing Address     Street Address  Free text   
        Postal or ZIP code  Free text   
        City    Free text   
        Country     Choose one from drop-down list  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)
        State / Province    Choose one from drop-down list created based on country selected    
    Phone/Communications (including country code)   Phone       
        Mobile      
        Fax         
        Phone PA        
    Internet URL    Institutional / Project related www     Allow to list up to three URLs  
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    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.
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  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?)
    Environment of taxonomic group  Environment of ‘name of chosen taxa’   Select environment for study for each and every taxon listed as field of expertise  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
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:   Multiple-choice from list from Excel file “Taxonomic activities” Tick box
    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  Multiple-choice. Insert name of taxa automatically to fill out the Methodology / approach per pre-selected taxa
    Ongoing / Planned research projects Title of project    Free text   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      Select either ongoing project or planned project – radio button. This should be possible for each project listed.
        Keywords    Free text   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   For each listed project, free text should be possible to write.

On base on this tabular model and on base of the GTI Taxonomists Database an UML diagram has been developed:

Implementation

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

Updated by Andreas Kohlbecker over 16 years ago · 8 revisions