EDIT WP5 Platform for Cybertaxonomy

As of March 2007, 14 models have been produced from interview, eight of which have been reviewed and posted on the EDIT wiki. The interviews have been targeted towards the criteria for selecting candidates, as agreed at the modeller’s meeting in Berlin during September 2006. These were; geographical coverage, taxonomic group (2 interviews each), environment of taxonomic groups, techniques used, and size of organisation.
Details of these criteria appear in appendix 1. So far, progress is as follows:

From 23 to 24 May 2007, Lutz Suhrbier will attend the International Workshop on Virtual Research Environments and Collaborative Work Environments at the e-Science Institute in Edinburgh (UK).

• Activity: A working group within the workpackage that is responsible for a series of operations (tasks) listed in the workplan (description of work). Each activity has an Activity Leader and a list of Components & Milestones. See also the Deliverables page.
• Component: A software application (desktop or web based) for human users or a (web) service.

This is just to let the community know that I have been asked by Jane Smith to prepare the Requirements Document for the European Virtual Library of Taxonomic Literature (E-ViTL). My aim is finish the report by 6th June. It should then provide a set of criteria, related to user requirements and technical specifications, that will allow tendering for a system to take place.

I am currently in the process of capturing user requirements. Following brainstorming with fellow scientists at NHML, and attendance at the recent WP6 Meeting, I have set up an online questionnaire, which everyone in the EDIT Community is invited to participate - so tell your friends and colleagues! I shall also extend the invitation via the TAXACOM and TDWG listservers.

The survey can be found at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?A=193016818E830

I shall run the survey until Friday 11th May and shall then start writing the requirements report.

In addition to the questionnaire there is also a debate starting on the WP6 Web Revisions Forum, which you are invited to contribute to: http://www.editwebrevisions.info/forum/17. Alternatively you can always e-mail your thoughts and comments to me : c.hussey (at) nhm.ac.uk.
NOTE: E-ViTL is likely to be a resource discovery tool rather than a repository of full text articles. It could, however, point users to repositories, such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library (http://bhl.si.edu/), online journals and other sources.

There is some debate over whether E-ViTL should attempt to provide reference management functions, in addition to providing access to literature. Also, whether it should be a repository for reference lists, rather than a portal to search distributed repositories. However, the purpose of this survey is to gather user requirements and, although it is unlikely that E-ViTL will be able to incorporate all possible requirements, your views will provide a useful pointer for future development.

Thank you all for your interest.

Charles Hussey

Walter Berendsohn gave a clarifying presentation about the aims of WP5 in Berlin during a meeting of WP5+WP6. The presentation is an introduction to the Internet Platform for Cybertaxonomy, the overall aims of a European Network of Excellence project and the relations of WP5 with WP6 and CATE.

The WP5 Modeler's Meeting will be held at the Hotel Szent György Kúria, Budapest on 07-08.05.2007.

For more information concerning accommodation and travel to Hungary please contact Andras Gubanyi.

In last few weeks the WP5 team have been busy finalising the second 18 month EDIT budget and work plan (JPA). The new 18 month plan (see under About) has 5 new activities extrapolated from the original work plan. The new activities include WP5.5 lead by Anton Güntsch (BGBM) that deals with taxonomic core components; WP5.6 lead by Regine Vignes (MNHN) specialises in descriptive tools; WP5.7 lead by Robert Tolksdorf (FUB) investigates communication tools; WP5.8 lead by the BGBM deals with publications support tools and WP5.9 is investigating specimen access platform components.

The WP5 team have also completed two deliverables in the first 18 Month period (Months 0 - 11). These are WP5.2.1.1 (RBGK) Draft functional model and bottleneck report for revisionary taxonomy and WP5.3.1.1 (NHML) Existing Digital Library activity, principles and standards. The deliverables are currently available to all WP5 members on the WP5 wiki.

ISTC is still looking for members from EDIT partner institutions. If you are interested in joining the ISTC or would like your institution to be represented please contact Malte C. Ebach (WP5 Coordinator) providing the name and contact details of the appropriate person. Typically this would be a person responsible for the institutions IT department, a biologist chairing the institutions IT group, or some similar responsible position.

Planned and submitted Components and Milestones (until Month 59) Please note that submitted Components and Milestones are highlighted. Partners responsible for components and milestones are listed on the page WP5-Team. By clicking on the table headings the columns can be sorted.