EDIT WP5 Platform for Cybertaxonomy

One of the central goals of Workpackage 5 is the creation of an internet platform for cybertaxonomy, a collection of online resources designed to enable the scientific community to practise taxonomic work online. In any project involving the design and creation of new software platforms, the first effort must be to fully understand the existing work processes that the software aims to facilitate. To this end, an investigation was undertaken into the current work practises in the field, captured under Component C5.08.

A data portal for frequent online publication of taxonomic revisions has been developed in close cooperation with the EDIT WP6 Cichorieae exemplar group. It is also successfully in use to publish the EDIT WP6 Diptera Exemplar group data. The php based system provides a unified insight into the data of projects working on the revision of taxonomic groups. During the design process we focused on a layout which not only adapts the look of according books but also extends it by the means of web technology.

We are delighted to welcome Dorottya Varsányi from the Hungarian Natural History Museum, London, to the WP5 team!

Dorottya Varsányi will be compiling test datasets from the book of Fauna of Aggtelek National Park and georeferencing that data. She is working together with Andras Gubanyi.

We are delighted to welcome Julius Welby from the Natural History Museum, London, to the WP5 team!

Julius is part of the WP5.3 "Virtual Library of Taxonomic Literature and Documentation" team lead by Jane Smith (NHML).

For further information on the WP5 work plan please visit: http://cybertaxonomy.eu/blog/2007/04/04/workplan

The second ISTC Meeting is scheduled to take place in the Botanical Museum and Botanical Gardens (BGBM) in Berlin during September 13 – 14, 2007 to ensure timely input for the planning of the third period of the EDIT project.

For more information on the ISTC please visit the ISTC Page.

A detailed EDIT WP5 Workplan (Description of Work) can be downloaded here. For a short summary of the workplan, please refer to the WP5 Workplan and Components and Milestones page.

This document describes the ATBI modeling details of the EDIT project, with special focus on inventorying activities. The description comprises two packages: the Targets package describes the structure of research target descriptions; the Inventory package describes the inventorying activities, first in a general viewpoint, then also for different branches (Algology, Bryophytology, Colepterology, Lepidopterology, Lichenology, Malacology). The report can be downloaded here .

The task of EDIT work package 5.7 is to “Identify suitable communication tools as platform components and provide test implementations for perusal of work package 6 and (in close cooperation with Operation 7.3.) WP7”. The aim of this component is to draft a list of suitable communication tools for platform environment first. Second, requirements for a suitable platform environment have to be researched and defined. Third, a selection of suitable platform has to be investigated and evaluated regarding the formerly defined requirements.

The Application and Service Tracker (BDTracker) has been established at http://www.bdtracker.net to document and review applications, services, and resources (e.g. authority files or maps that can be used as GIS layers). It will be used to review the most important and promising software tools for taxonomists (download the report below).

The EDIT Biodiversity Service & Application Tracker (BDTracker) is now available online www.bdtracker.net