EDIT's Internet Platform for Cybertaxonomy is a distributed computing platform that helps taxonomists do revisionary taxonomy and taxonomic field work efficiently and expediently via the web. At the core of the platform lies a common data model to enable interoperability between the different components. The model describes all the commonly used data that is dealt with in the platform, and therefore covers taxonomic names and concepts; literature references; authors; (type) specimen; structured descriptive data; molecular data; related (binary) files such as images or compiled keys; controlled vocabularies and terms; and species related content of any kind like economic use or conservation status.
The cyberplatform consists of interoperable but independent components. Platform components can take the form of software applications (desktop or web-based) for human users or (web) services intended to be used by other software applications. The platform as envisioned does not have a single user interface or website; rather, it is a collection of interacting components which may be combined and assembled according to the task in hand. To facilitate the development of core CDM Applications such as the CDM Community Server, the CDM Dataportals, and the Taxonomic Editor, an implementation of the CDM has been created in the java programming language. In addition to CDM model classes being modelled as plain-old-java-objects (pojo's), a set of java components has been created that provide common services across all java applications using the CDM. They serve as the basis of core components of the Internet Platform for Cyberplatform and also allow the development of other applications using the CDM by providing basic functionality that can be extended for a particular purpose.
The CDM Library, as it is known, consists of four major modules that can be used by any java application based on the CDM. These libraries are used as the foundation of the Taxonomic Editor and the CDM Community Server. In addition a web application (the CDM Community Server) is documented here, as its components can be re-purposed or extended by other web applications based on the CDM.
Figure 1. An overview of the main CDM Components
This reference documentation is aimed at anyone who would like to understand the software components that make up the core of the cyberplatform: the CDM Java Library and the CDM Server application. More generic information about the applications that make up the cyberplatform, information for end-users of specific applications, and information on the EDIT project itself are beyond the scope of this document. More information about EDIT can be found on the EDIT website, and more information on the specific software applications produced by EDIT can be found on the Work Package 5 website.