This document describes some of the use cases foreseen as driving the specification work on openDS.
They are organised into those of interest from the point of view of being enabling for new modes of work and those more directly relevant to persons that will use specimens for science.
This is what I've done initially - but the allocation of specific use cases to each of the two main categories is not yet correct. Needs changing.
In this category we are thinking of the cases 1 - 4 shown in the following illustration.*
On request, one system (computer, software) transfers Digital Specimen data to another system (computer, software). Either across a network or within the same machine.
Machines or machine agents acting on behalf of humans can perform designated operations on a Digital Specimen located on a remote machine across a network.
Digital Speciment data (or a subset of it) can be packaged for preservation or download.
The internal design of a system is guided by but not constrained by the specification of openDS and its requirements e.g., for object model, compliance, etc.
open Digital Specimens provide opportunities for accessing more information about or related to natural science specimens (preserved plants, animals, fossils, rocks, minerals, etc.) with easier access leading to better workflows and better research. As a curated and authoritative digital twin for the physical specimen, a Digital Specimen with its package of links to other data could be a considerably more reliable and efficient information source than crawling potential databases manually for information about and derived from the physical specimen.
Higher degrees of standardization, as epitomized by the openDS specification make it easier to consume and use data and improve curation. But such standardization but must accommodate multiple scenarios (e.g., preserved specimens, living specimens, jars of specimens, splitting of specimens, cases where there is no specimen but other objects like photos, illustrations, recordings, etc., and cases where the original specimen has been lost or destroyed). Not everything needs to be standardized but to benefit, you need something more standard for additional (supplementary) content.
e.g., in moves towards more community-oriented curatorial practices for data about and derived from specimens.
To be further elaborated.
Linking information makes taxonomic work easier and enables linkage of data and information from and to other disciplines. Community curation saves a lot of effort in making these links compared to the case where every collection must make all the (semantic) links on their own.
Persistently identified open Digital Specimens in conjunction with third-party services can facilitate tracking of specimen use e.g., when mentioned in publications by means of its persistent identifier.
Work performed in relation to a specimen, including gathering in the first place or deriving new data/information through analysis can be unambiguously attributed to the correct person(s) e.g., in conjunction with a researcher's ORCID iD. This can provide incentives to create open Digital Specimens in the first place.
Digital Specimens can help to align specimen concepts and specimen metadata structure across institutions, as well as providing a strong foundation for attaching annotations/interpretations and records of loans and visits.
Handling specimens openly on the Internet offers opportunities for establishing a single virtual collection across multiple participating institutions (such as the European Collection Objects Index to be established by the DiSSCo research infrastructure) as well as the possibility to curate Digital Specimens in multiple thematic collections simultaneously - for example all specimens collected in Charles Darwin's HMS Beagle voyages. The latter is not easily achievable for physical objects.
Provenance data supplied with an open Digital Specimen can help to assess suitability and/or reliability of data for specific purposes. Available metadata can inform about possible usage restrictions and/or obligations associated with use (licenses, Nagoya protocol, etc.).
Bringing changes in content to notice of researchers, educators and others without the need for them to actively look for that. A subscribe/notify capability (i.e., subscribe to a specimen of interest and be notified that its content has changed or that it’s been used in some way).
New scientific discovery will provide new insight about organisms and might lead to a new taxonomic classification. New names will generate new identifiers and data. As a curator for type specimens, where can I find the link to the previous and current names (pointing to two different types of specimens and identifiers), without going through the taxonomic literature?
Some of the links and information about the type specimens are stored in local systems and published in aggregators. As a curator, how I can maintain these links to prevent link rot?
Example scenario: Chromis agilis is a ray-finned fish species from the reef bass or damselfly family. It has a fishbase id,WoRMS and gbif occurrence id. GBIF has links to the CMS data at the The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB).
In 2020, a new species name assigned was assigned this fish. Chromis agilis now refers to the fish found in the Red and Indian sea. Chromis pacifica found in the Pacific Ocean.
This new knowledge generated new sets of identifiers http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=145592 id.
And new data in another collections (Western Australia Museum).
- How do we make all the links FAIR and machine-actionable?
- How to prevent link rot?
- Alert for change (in this case name change; also S10)
... ...
To be completed.
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