Report prepared for the Experts Meeting Towards the Implementation of a Global Invasive Species
Information Network (GISIN), 6-8 April, 2004. Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Page 62
8/30/2004
Discover Life -- Translating
Across Standards
John Pickering, Discover Life, University of
Georgia, 717A Biological Sciences Boulevard,
Athens, GA 20602-2602 USA
Abstract
Discover Life, at
http://www.discoverlife.org, provides Web tools
to assemble, process, and share text and
images on invasive and other species. These
tools help users to identify, report, database,
and map information using most Internet
browsers. They are designed to integrate data
from numerous sources, require minimal training
or technical knowledge to use, and are available
to everyone with Web access for free. The
philosophy behind their success is that it is
much easier to build translators to share data
than it is for everyone to adopt one or more new
data standards.
With the exception of the Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and
other low-level protocols, it is unlikely that new
standards will meet all the specific needs of the
global invasive species community.
Furthermore, because of the high costs of
moving from legacy systems, rewriting functions,
and retraining personnel, it may be more
efficient to integrate existing systems and data
structures than to adopt new ones. Discover
Life's tools allow users to import data using Web
forms and software packages that export
HyperText Markup Language (HTML),
Extensible Markup Language (XML), RFC822
headers, or flat text files. They support Microsoft
Excel, Microsoft Access, and Structured Query
Language databases.
This paper will describe how to add,
share, and query data with (1) Discover Life's
IDnature guides and checklists, (2) its Global
Mapper developed in partnership with
Topozone.com, (3) a reporting system that
supports customized species data entry forms,
and (4) a Web-based data manager that uses
globally unique identifiers to label specimens
and track records. For details please see
Introduction
The Discover Life project at
http://www.discoverlife.org began in 1998
with the goal of enabling over 2000
volunteers in the Great Smokey Mountains
National Park (United States of America
(USA)) to be able to contribute information
about species. It became clear however,
that for many reasons, the public was
unable to help or contribute this type of
information. One of the main reasons for
this was that the public could not identify
most of the species that they found. So
Discover Life concentrated on providing
identification tools via the online Discover
Life system.
The second main reason why the public
could not contribute was that they were
unable to put their information into a
database. They had no way of reporting
their observations electronically. Thus, in
addition to the identification tools, the team
began to develop online reporting systems
with a focus on mapping.
It is much easier to build translators
to share data than it is for everyone
to adopt one or more new data
standards.
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