ITR/IM(BIO): Biodiversity Data Discovery and Integration

University Of Massachusetts Boston, Dorchester MA

Investigators

Abstract

The tremendous diversity of life on the planet is mirrored by the diversity of web-based information about species. This information is often difficult to find and unfriendly to use. Web pages that are useful to scientists are often inaccessible to schoolchildren, and education pages usually hold no research interest. Unlike the parts in a well-stocked building supply warehouse, the databases and web pages about organisms are difficult to locate and combine into coherent structure. This project uses a component architecture to integrate biodiversity web information seamlessly. It introduces building blocks to locate the origin and authority of a species name, to extract maps for species distribution, and provides nuts and bolts by which unrelated databases and web site can be made to cooperate. This is achieved through using XML, the eXtensible Markup Language that has been used in solving comparable problem in other parts of the web. The project develops XML gateways to make flexible the data sources not able to produce XML and provides multiple views on the same data. This accommodates different purposes, educational background and ages, for example. To illustrate its broad utility, the framework will be provided to a group of school teachers working with biology undergraduates and graduate students to produce a web-accessible field guide to the habitats of Columbia Point, Boston, together with curricular material for classroom use.