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Integrated Taxonomic Information System
Janet Gomon, Deputy Director, ITIS
Smithsonian Institution
Museum of Natural History
The Colour of Ocean Data - Palais des Congrès, Brussels, Belgium, 25-27 November 2002
Presentation Topics
ITIS Overview Technical Aspects Benefits Lessons Learned Future Plans
What is ITIS?
An evolving standard reference for taxonomic information on species (biodiversity)
A partnership US, Canadian, Mexican governmental groups Non-governmental organizations
Developed in collaboration with systematics community and other list keepers
Goal To provide quality taxonomic information
about organisms that meets needs of partners and user public
Taxonomic coverage: all major groups; focus on North America; world coverage where feasible
Service:• data quality assurance system for taxonomic
identification• common reference point for exchange of data• capacity building in taxonomy (regional datasets,
etc.)
History
NODC Taxonomic Code, 7th ed. – ITIS roots
“VIMS Code” or “Taxonomic Code for the Biota of the Chesapeake Bay” – NODC Tax. Code roots
1996 – 7 U.S. federal agencies sign MOU, alongwith Smithsonian Natural History Museum
By 2002 – ITIS North America established; Associate Member GBIF; joined with Species 2000 in “Catalogue of Life”
How many names?
Over 320,000 scientific names
186,000 valid/accepted species names
80,000 additional common names
Data Process & Tools
1. Are my species names in ITIS?
2. Data submission
3. Data development
4. Data load (public site)
5. Data access & delivery- 4 ITIS homepages
- master DB resides in US
- freely downloadable via FTP; embed ITIS within
your system or tools
- Develop a script & generate reports at your site
- machine-to-machine interoperability
- XML output
Required Data Elements
Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN) – system assigned; common reference point for exchange of data
Scientific Name Author(s) – for records genus and below
Rank Usage – current standing
Parent Scientific Name – link into hierarchy
Associated Accepted Name – synonym link
Unacceptability Reason Reference(s) – experts, publications, other sources
Quality Indicatorsfor ITIS Metadata
Taxonomic Completeness - complete; partial; unknown
Taxonomic Currency - year of revision; unknown
Update Date - date record modified
Taxonomic Credibility Rating - perceived level of review and accuracy of taxonomic name and attributes
ITIS UsesExamples
End-to-end data management support Cataloging applications – Specify, SMMS, mobile
computing units Portal applications – BiOSC Gateway ITIS NA Digital library applications – Congo Expedition
AMNH Look-up reference Linking point to other nomenclatures &
data sources Users link to ITIS
ITIS Uses (cont.)ITIS Compliant Marine Databases
Examples
Users
Scientists
Natural resource managers
Publishers
Journalists, writers
Collections managers, librarians
Data managers
General public, hobbyists
Educators, students
Private industry
Policy analysts & decision makers
Challenges &Lessons Learned
1. Global vs. Regional Approach
2. Single Name vs. Multiple Classifications
3. Data Quality vs. Data Quantity
4. Current Names vs. All Names
5. Centralized vs. Decentralized
Future Plans
ITIS North America – 2003 meeting Integration with other systems Focus on sustainability of ITIS Improved circumscription of taxa Standard for taxonomic data exchange Distributed node architecture; new tools
Distributed Node Approach
ITIS CentralServer
ITISNode
User/Expert(off-line)
ITISCD
W eb
Net User/Expert
Final DB
ApprovedDatasets
IncomingDatasets
User/Expert(off-line
ITISNode
Net User/Expert
Off-lineSubmission
DirectSubmission
AcquisitionDissemination Processing
Regional/Multilingual
Dissemination RegionalAcquisition
Mirroring
Harvesting
Summary ITIS is an evolving standard reference of
scientifically credible, quality-controlled taxonomic information on species (biodiversity)
ITIS data are used in a variety of applications
Referencing biological datasets to ITIS brings significant value to your data - an indicator of QA/QC of species identifications
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