Community Next Steps for Making Globally Unique Identifiers Work for Biocollections Data

By

Guralnick, Robert
Cellinese, Nicoletta
Deck, John
Pyle, Richard
Kunze, John A
Penev, Lyubomir
Walls, Ramona
Hagedorn, Gregor
Agosti, Donat
Wieczorek, John
Catapano, Terry
Page, Roderic D. M.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2015

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

494

Pages

133-154

Subjects

Biocollections , field collections , Globally Unique Identifiers , GUIDs , identifiers , legacy collections , linked open data , semantic publishing

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.494.9352

 

Abstract

Biodiversity data is being digitized and made available online at a rapidly increasing rate but current practices typically do not preserve linkages between these data, which impedes interoperation, provenance tracking, and assembly of larger datasets. For data associated with biocollections, the biodiversity community has long recognized that an essential part of establishing and preserving linkages is to apply globally unique identifiers at the point when data are generated in the field and to persist these identifiers downstream, but this is seldom implemented in practice. There has neither been coalescence towards one single identifier solution (as in some other domains), nor even a set of recommended best practices and standards to support multiple identifier schemes sharing consistent responses. In order to further progress towards a broader community consensus, a group of biocollections and informatics experts assembled in Stockholm in October 2014 to discuss community next steps to overcome current roadblocks. The workshop participants divided into four groups focusing on: identifier practice in current field biocollections; identifier application for legacy biocollections; identifiers as applied to biodiversity data records as they are published and made available in semantically marked-up publications; and cross-cutting identifier solutions that bridge across these domains. The main outcome was consensus on key issues, including recognition of differences between legacy and new biocollections processes, the need for identifier metadata profiles that can report information on identifier persistence missions, and the unambiguous indication of the type of object associated with the identifier. Current identifier characteristics are also summarized, and an overview of available schemes and practices is provided.