TDWG - Biodiversity Information StandardsPreviously: Taxonomic Databases Working GroupInternational not-for-profit organization that develops standards and protocols for sharing biodiversity data.All outcomes are freely available to the public.Anyone can participate in subgroup discussions no need to be a TDWG member, although membership is always encouraged.

Develop, adopt and promote standards and guidelines for the recording and exchange of data about organisms.

Promote the use of standards through the most appropriate and effective means.

Act as a forum for discussion through holding meetings and through publications.

TDWG Mission

TDWG activities date from 1985, when a group of botanists met at the Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques in Geneva.

The aim was to explore ideas on standardization and collaboration between projects and institutions that were working with plant taxonomic databases.

This was before the Internet became widespread!

First meeting was probably very successful

History

TDWG Annual Meetings

1985 Geneva, Switzerland (Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques)1986 Pittsburgh, USA (Hunt Institute)1987 Edinburgh, Scotland (Royal Botanic Gardens)1988 St Louis, USA (Missouri Botanical Garden)1989 Las Palmas, Gran Canaria (Jardin Botanico)1990 Delphi, Greece (European Cultural Centre)1991 Canberra, Australia (Australian National Botanic Gardens)1992 Xalapa, Mexico (Instituto de Ecologia)1993 Washington, USA (Smithsonian Institute)1994 Paris, France (IUBS 25th General Assembly)1995 Madrid, Spain (Real Jardin Botanico - CSIC)1996 Toronto, Canada (Royal Ontario Museum)1997 Taipei, Taiwan (Academia Sinica - IUBS 26th General Assembly)1998 Reading, England (Centre for Plant Diversity and Systematics)1999 Harvard, Cambridge, USA (Harvard University Herbaria)2000 Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Senckenberg Museum)2001 Sydney, Australia (Royal Botanic Gardens)2002 Indaiatuba, Brazil (CRIA)2003 Oeiras, Portugal (Instituto Gulbenkian de Cincia)2004 Christchurch, New Zealand (Landcare Research)2005 St. Petersburg, Russia (Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences)2006 St. Louis, USA (Missouri Botanical Garden)2007 Bratislava, Slovakia (Department of Zoology of the Comenius University)2008 Fremantle, Australia (Maritime Museum)

Participation in the last meetings

Opportunity for TDWG to assess achievements, plan the next activities, elect new officers, and to conduct any other relevant business.

Opportunity for the subgroups to make progress by organizing specific face-to-face meetings.

Opportunity for all participants to attend a biodiversity informatics conference, present their work, interact with other people, become current with new technologies, and learn about other projects across the globe.TDWG Annual Meeting

TDWG Expansion

In 1988 TDWG became affiliated to the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS): Zoologists and microbiologists started to participate.

In the 1990s the Internet started to flourish: dream of being able to aggregate knowledge on the worlds biodiversity and bring it to every biologists desktop.

In 2006 TDWG got a US$1.5 million grant from the Moore Foundation: Major restructuring process.

Currently, TDWG members are a mix of biologists, ecologists, computer scientists, taxonomists, librarians, geoscientists...

TDWG Types of Standards

Technical SpecificationProtocol, service, procedure, format

Applicability StatementHow an existing technology can be applied (e.g. LSIDs)

Best Current PracticeDescription of good behavior

Data StandardContent specification or controlled vocabulary

Users Guide to the DELTA System (1986)Floristic Regions of the World (1986)International Transfer Format for Botanic Garden Plant Records (1987)Index Herbariorum. Part I: The Herbaria of the World (1990)Botanico-periodicum-huntianum/supplementum (1991)XDF Language for Definition and Exchange of Biological Datasets (1991)World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (1992)Authors of Plant Names (1992)Plant Names in Botanical Databases (1995)Plant Occurrence and Status Scheme (1995)Economic Botany Data Collection Standard (1995)HISPID3 - Herbarium Information Standards and Protocols for Interchange of Data (1996)Access to Biological Collection Data (ABCD) (2005)Structure of Descriptive Data (2005)Taxonomic Concept Transfer Schema (2005)Standards Documentation Specification (draft)Life Sciences Identifiers (LSID) Applicability Statement (draft)Natural Collections Descriptions (draft)TDWG Access Protocol for Information Retrieval TAPIR (in preparation)DarwinCore (in preparation)TDWG StandardsRetired/DeprecatedStandards-no championCurrentStandardsDraftStandards

TDWG Infrastructure Project - Aims

Devise a new long-term support model for the organization.

Develop appropriate procedural rules.

Set up a new infrastructure to support all its activities.

Make the organization and its scope known to the public.

Effectively disseminate its work products.

TDWG Infrastructure Project - Results

A new constitution and standards development process are now in place to ensure the quality of standards.

All working groups have been reorganized and received support to accomplish their tasks.

A new integrated web environment is now available (content management system, Wiki, mailing lists, journal management and publishing system, and version control system).

A new group has been created to define a common technical architecture for all TDWG standards.

Current Working StructureTDWG is governed by an Executive Committee consisting of:ChairSecretaryTreasurerEditor (journal and website)6 Regional Secretaries (based on the regions of the world)2 Additional individuals may be appointed by the officersOfficers are elected by the membership during the annual meeting.When voting is required, results are based on simple majority. One vote for each member.

Standards Development ProcessInterest Groups provide a base for discussing goals and strategies for data sharing in a particular area.

Task Groups are created within Interest Groups to develop a specific product in a specific timeframe.

Any TDWG member can petition for the establishment of a new Interest Group by submitting a charter to the Executive Committee.

Both kinds of Groups are managed by Conveners responsible for developing consensus, preparing the standards specification and reporting back to the Executive Committee annually.

Standards Development Process

New Standards LicenseTo be defined by the TDWG Standards Documentation Specification (under final review).

New standards will normally be released under the Creative Commons By Attribution license, which means that users will be free:To Share: to copy, distribute, and transmit the work;To Remix: to make derivative works;Under the condition that users must attribute the work to TDWG by citing the standard by name and providing the URL to the original document, but not in any way suggesting that TDWG endorses the user or the use of the work.

Biological DescriptionsSpecies Profiles (being established)GeospatialImaging & MultimediaInvasive SpeciesLiteratureNatural Collections DescriptionsObservation and Specimen RecordsTaxonomic Names and ConceptsTechnical ArchitectureGlobal IdentifiersAccess Protocol for Information RetrievalPhylogenetics (being established)TDWG Interest Groups

Principle 1: TDWG standards apply to shared data

Enables interoperability of providers and consumers with radically different internal implementations.Does not dictate internal structures on data providers or consumers.Format matters when data crosses boundaries. New TDWG Standards Architecture

Data Sharing ScenarioTypical scenario for complex biodiversity research will require different kinds of data from multiple sources to be combined: MolecularGeospatialNomenclatureDescriptionOccurrenceLiteratureInteractionTaxonomy?

TDWG Architecture RequirementsData providers will not know who will use their data or how it will be combined with data from other sources. Data consumers will need some level of commonality across all data received so that it can be combined for analysis without much pain even for new types of combinations.

Providers and consumers need to be able to reference pieces of data in a consistent and reliable way.

Data exchange needs to be facilitated by adopting common rules.

Principle 2: Biodiversity data will be modelled as graph of identifiable objects.

Objects will be defined by an ontology: Understandable by humans and computers.Globally unique identifiers will be used to link objects across the network.A common exchange protocol will be available to search and retrieve data.

New TDWG Standards Architecture

TDWG Architecture Components

Ontology Globally Unique Identifiers Exchange Protocols

TDWG OntologyInitial prototype available as a series of UML diagrams and OWL/RDF vocabularies.

Global IdentifiersThe Global Identifier Task Group produced an Applicability Statement for Life Science Identifiers (LSIDs) which is under final review.

GUID systems like LSID provide mechanisms to identify and access data objects on the Web.

Identifiers must be persistent (permanently associated with a data object).Identifiers must be global in scope.Identifiers must allow clients to access the underlying data object in a standard way.

Data Exchange Protocol The TDWG Access Protocol for Information Retrieval (TAPIR) Task Group is finalizing the specification. TAPIR :Is based on established Web standards like HTTP, XML and XML Schema.Is independent of the data being exchanged (can be used to access a wide range of data).Can return data in different formats.Has five operations to address basic needs of federated networks: access to metadata and capabilities of the service, preliminary data discovery and data mining, searching, and service monitoring.

TDWG Priorities for 2009Promote standards through the TDWG process (Standards Documentation Specification, LSID Applicability Statement, DarwinCore and TAPIR) .Foster the uptake of LSIDs using RDF vocabularies.Complete the core ontology and vocabularies.Develop a strategy on metadata.Reach out to the community for support and to ensure TDWG standards address community needs.

MembershipWe need more people and institutions to support the development of more effective standards.Current membership is small considering the size of the community and the international significance of the work.Individual membership:US$75 / yearInstitutional membership:US$500 / year (US$400 before March 30)

TDWG ChallengesDeveloping effective standards is not easy

Involves people with different interests and perspectives also need to deal with conservatism, rivalries, egos...Involves complex areas of knowledge trivial issues are not trivial...Involves multiple disciplines experts from different areas need to understand each otherInformation Technology evolves very quickly standards can soon become obsolete!

TDWG needs more resources to facilitate rapid development of effective standards

TDWG ChallengesSome think that any competent individual could probably develop a standard faster than a group...

Group outcomes can be odd an amalgam of different views: A camel is a horse designed by a committee (unknown source)

If you want to go fast around a well-prepared track, get yourself a racehorse.If you want to reliably reach a distant destination across unknown terrain, you are probably better off on a camel. (M. Champion)

http://www.tdwg.org

Thank you

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