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Blair J, Gwiazdowski R, Borrelli A, et al. Towards a catalogue of biodiversity databases: An ontological case study. Biodivers Data J. 2020;8:e32765doi: 10.3897/BDJ.8.e32765.
Blair, J., Gwiazdowski, R., Borrelli, A., Hotchkiss, M., Park, C., Perrett, G., & Hanner, R. (2020). Towards a catalogue of biodiversity databases: An ontological case study. Biodiversity data journal, 8e32765. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e32765
Blair, Jarrett, et al. "Towards a catalogue of biodiversity databases: An ontological case study." Biodiversity data journal vol. 8 (2020): e32765. doi: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e32765
Blair J, Gwiazdowski R, Borrelli A, Hotchkiss M, Park C, Perrett G, Hanner R. Towards a catalogue of biodiversity databases: An ontological case study. Biodivers Data J. 2020 Mar 27;8:e32765. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.8.e32765. eCollection 2020. PMID: 32269475; PMCID: PMC7125240.
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Biodivers Data J. 2020 Mar 27;8:e32765. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.8.e32765. eCollection 2020.

Towards a catalogue of biodiversity databases: An ontological case study.

Biodiversity data journal

Jarrett Blair, Rodger Gwiazdowski, Andrew Borrelli, Michelle Hotchkiss, Candace Park, Gleannan Perrett, Robert Hanner

Affiliations

  1. University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada University of Guelph Guelph Canada.
  2. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, United States of America University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst, MA United States of America.

PMID: 32269475 PMCID: PMC7125240 DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.8.e32765

Abstract

Biodiversity informatics depends on digital access to credible information about species. Many online resources host species' data, but the lack of categorisation for these resources inhibits the growth of this entire field. To explore possible solutions, we examined the (now retired) Biodiversity Information Projects of the World (BIPW) dataset created by the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG); this project, which ran from 2007-2015 (officially removed from the TDWG website in 2018) was an attempt at organising the Web's biodiversity databases into an indexed list. To do this, we applied a simple classification scheme to score databases within BIPW based on nine data categories, to characterise trends and current compositions of this biodiversity e-infrastructure. Primarily, we found that of 600 databases investigated from BIPW, only 315 (~53%) were accessible at the time of this writing, underscoring the precarious nature of the biodiversity information landscape. Many of these databases are still available, but suffer accessibility issues such as link rot, thus putting the information they contain in danger of being lost. We propose that a community-driven database of biodiversity databases with an accompanying ontology could facilitate efficient discovery of relevant biodiversity databases and support smaller databases - which have the greatest risk of being lost.

Jarrett Blair, Rodger Gwiazdowski, Andrew Borrelli, Michelle Hotchkiss, Candace Park, Gleannan Perrett, Robert Hanner.

Keywords: Biodiversity; Database; Database of Databases; Databases; Indexing; Information Resource Discover; Metadata; Ontology

References

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