EDIT WP5 Platform for Cybertaxonomy

This report deals with the practical achievement of the inventory of identification keys and related descriptive datasets, with emphasis on the metadata fields selected and some issues raised by this inventory. Relevant metadata fields have been selected into a pre-existing metadata list defined in the KeyToNature project. The aim was to keep a short number of fields in order to keep a moderate-sized table for the display and facilitate the appropriation by the future participants.

This is a report on the fourth ISTC meeting held in September 15-16, 2009 in Berlin, Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem and a draft version of the fifth Joint Periodic Activity (JPA5) of Workpackage 5.
The following aspects were discussed:

The ISTC has decided that a co-ordinated international effort is needed to create an Internet Platform for Cybertaxonomy, i.e. a distributed computing platform that assists taxonomists to do revisionary taxonomy and taxonomic field work efficiently, expediently and via the web. EDIT initiated a series of MoUs, each identical except for the understandings or agreements stated in Paragraph 4. Four different documents initiated by the ISTC are available up to now. EDIT partners were be invited to sign up to whichever MoU they can

The 4th ISTC meeting was held on September 15-16, 2009 at the Department of Biodiversity Informatics and Laboratories at Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum in Berlin. The agenda covered the following aspects:
Version 2 of the Internet Platform for Cybertaxonomy
Use of standardised evaluation procedures for platform components
Integration and sustainability
Preparing for the 5th Joint Programme of Activities

One of the EDIT achievements is a cybertaxonomy-platform (http://dev.e-taxonomy.eu/platform/ ) providing a large range of computer tools for taxonomists (http://dev.e-taxonomy.eu/platform/, http://www.bdtracker.net/). These tools are designed to assist the taxonomist from fieldwork to publication of results, including the management of descriptive data, which have a key role in the taxonomic revision process.

This milestone corresponds to the delivery of demonstrator software, for further details see C5.118. It shows the successful import of SDD (Structured Descriptive Data) standard conformant data (which has been produced with an external tool) into an EDIT Common Data Model database, and the subsequent publication of the data in the CDM by means of a simple web page.

The EDIT platform for Cybertaxonomy is a suite of loosely coupled tools that already exist or are newly developed. As a central structure for storing data and exchanging them between applications a “Common Data Model (CDM)” has been developed. Newer applications directly work upon this data structure and for this purpose use the CDM Library, a Java based framework to persist and access CDM data. However, many tools exist that are not yet based on the CDM or don’t support its data exchange format CDM XML. Data created with these tools need to be transformed properly.

The primary tool for taxonomists compiling and maintaining data in a Common Data Model (CDM) store is the Desktop Taxonomic Editor, which is now available in its version 2.0. The Editor has all necessary functions for creating taxonomic trees, organizing synonymies and name relations, and maintaining all kinds off factual data (now called "descriptions") such as distribution information and common names.

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The basic software equipment needed to carry out taxonomic work with the EDIT platform is a Common Data Model data store together with the desktop taxonomic editor and basic import and export functionalities, which can be used to set up the system with existing standardized data and export data, which have been finalized. We have bundled these functionalities within the CDM desktop taxonomic editor, which is available from http://dev.e-taxonomy.eu/trac/wiki/TaxonomicEditorDownload.

This report documents the soft launch in July 2009 of the Virtual Taxonomic Library (ViTaL), hosted at the Natural History Museum (London). The Virtual Taxonomic Library ViTaL is a component of the EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy, relaying on Common Data Model and aims to provide bibliographic services to aid the discovery and accessibility of taxonomically relevant literature.