The Flora of NorthAmerica digital library: a case study in biodiversity database publishing

Schnase, John L.; Kama, Deborah L.; Tomlinson, Kay L.; Sánchez, J. Alfredo; Cunnius, Edward L.; Morin, Nancy R.

doi:10.1006/jnca.1996.0041

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Knowledge about biodiversity and ecosystems is a vast and complex information domain (Schnase, Kama et al, 1997). It is inherently interdisciplinary with roots and applications in a range of different fields.…”

Section: Habitat Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Special Case of Scientific Data Sharing with Education

Wallis

Milojević²,

Borgman³

et al. 2006

Proc of Assoc for Info

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The seemingly simple task of reusing data for science education relies on the presence of scientific data, scientists willing to share, infrastructure to provide access, and mechanisms to share between the two disparate communities of scientists and science students. What makes sharing between scientists and science students a special case of data sharing, is that all of the implicit knowledge attending the data must pass along this same vector. Our work at the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing studying aspects of this data reuse problem has shown us a rough outline of how the future of this data sharing will look. Our approach is to start from the prospective of the scientists, looking for opportunities to support scientific research, and then leveraging the data for reuse by education. The investment needed to capture high quality scientific data necessitates the consideration of reuse by the general population as well as other interested scientific parties. IntroductionFor a digital library to be useful it must fit the needs, activities, and contexts of the people who use it, who create it, and who contribute to it. Here we report on the initial stages of research to develop and deploy a digital library of primary sources in habitat biology for use by scientists, teachers, and high school students associated with the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS), a large, multi-disciplinary research center. We are studying the information-related practices of these communities as input to the design.A basic premise of Science and Technology Studies (STS) is that science is a technical practice and a social practice (Star, 1995). In the case of CENS, multiple communities are using the same data collection instruments and resulting data. It is the interaction between technological and social aspects of scientific research that makes designing a system for these communities a complicated problem. When, how, and whether data sharing occurs between scientists is influenced by several conditions, such as whether scientific data exist to be shared, whether those scientists are willing to share those data, and whether mechanisms are available to support sharing. Sharing data among scientists reflects community practices, and these practices are only minimally understood (Hilgartner & Brandt-Rauf, 1994). Even less is understood about the conditions under which scientists will share their data with teachers and their students.Making scientific data available for use in learning is a means to leverage investments in the technology, the data, and the associated infrastructure. The CENS community initially consists of researchers across multiple disciplines, teachers, and students affiliated with the Center. As we expand, data generated by our sensor networks will be available to other scientists and to teachers and students in other schools. Sharing data among this diverse array of communities is the long-term goal of the research reported here. CENS offers a rare opportunity to study the generation of scientific data...

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Section: Habitat Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Special Case of Scientific Data Sharing with Education

Wallis

Milojević²,

Borgman³

et al. 2006

Proc of Assoc for Info

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“…There are several advantages of online Floras compared to conventional Floras published in print. Online Floras can be linked to other biodiversity platforms (Schnase et al 1997, Brach & Song 2006, Brouillet 2014, Victor et al 2014 and are easily accessible worldwide (Schnase et al 1997, Brach & Song 2006, Brouillet 2014. They can be published in sections without waiting for all the treatments of all of the plant groups, nomenclatural and taxonomic changes can be easily updated, new species can be quickly incorporated and new collection records and the documentation of extinctions and changes in conservation status can also be continuously updated.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The online Flora of Mexico: eFloraMEX

Sosa¹,

Alvarado-Cárdenas²,

Stefano³

et al. 2023

Bot. Sci.

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Background: Mexico is a megadiverse country with an elevated diversity of species of vascular plants. A comprehensive Flora that includes all of the vascular plants distributed in Mexico does not yet exist. Electronic Floras have demonstrated the value of a compendium based on existing knowledge and published Floras, checklists and revisions. Questions: What is the best approach for publishing the Flora of Mexico? What resources are needed to create this Flora? What is the current status of these resources? Objective: The objective of this paper is to summarize and evaluate the taxonomic and digital resources and the bioinformatic tools needed to develop an online Flora for the vascular plants of Mexico, as well as to discuss its content. Results and Conclusions: An online flora using the EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy is proposed, with the collaboration of Mexican and international researchers. It will be based on approximately 5.3 million specimens deposited in Mexican herbaria, with an inter-operational portal to other biodiversity platforms. The name assigned to this online flora is “eFloraMEX”. As a starting point, the taxonomic backbone, the checklist for the Mexican vascular plants including approximately 29,000 species, was published in a portal (efloramex.ib.unam.mx) to be revised and updated by specialists. A council of taxonomists and computer experts will lead the eFloraMEX project on two fronts: taxonomic and digital resources. The main challenges to completing this Flora are building the team, training taxonomists, digitizing the specimens for most of Mexican herbaria and obtaining the required long-term funding.

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“…Crowston (1997) uses CT to analyze the software problem fixing process of a large minicomputer manufacturer in order to identify source of difficulties and possible alternative processes. CT has also been used to analyze the cataloguing processes of the Flora of North America digital library (Schnase et al, 1997), the benefits of active sick leave (Scheel, Hagen, & Oxman, 2002), methods for organizational process change (Kim, 2000), knowledge management (Holsapple & Joshi, 2000 and the use of genres for coordination (Yoshioka, Herman, Yates, & Orlikowski, 2001).…”

Section: Empirical Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coordination Theory

Religion Past and Present

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Since the initial publication in 1994, Coordination Theory (Malone and Crowston, 1994) has been referenced in nearly 300 journal articles, book chapters, conference papers and theses. This chapter will analyze the contribution of this body of research to determine how Coordination Theory has been used for user task analysis and modelling for HCI. Issues that will be addressed include: 1) how the theory has been applied; 2) factors that led to the success of the theory; and 3) identification of areas needing further research.

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The Flora of NorthAmerica digital library: a case study in biodiversity database publishing

Cited by 8 publications

References 17 publications

The Special Case of Scientific Data Sharing with Education

The Special Case of Scientific Data Sharing with Education

The online Flora of Mexico: eFloraMEX

Coordination Theory

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