ORNIS: A Community Effort to Build an Integrated, Distributed, Enriched, and Error-checked ORNithological Information System

University Of Kansas Center For Research Inc, Lawrence KS

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal # 0345448 . PI: Peterson ORNIS: A Community Effort to Build an Integrated, Distributed, Enriched, and Error-checked ORNithological Information System The University of Kansas has been granted an award to build an integrated database system for the rapid integration of specimen records (including vocal recordings, egg and nest holdings) of avian species archived in biocollections held in North American institutions. The system will use globally accepted data exchange standards and internet protocols to eventually make up to 3.9 million collections available to the global biodiversity community and to allow the data from those collections to be shared and combined with data from all over the world. The exceptional merits of the system lie in both the informatics and community aspects of the project. There is broad community buy-in from 29 institutions in North America. The use of globally compatible standards and protocols (e.g. DiGIR) will allow universal access (e.g. through GBIF & IT IS and other potals). There is also broad collaboration with similar projects based on other taxa (e.g. MaNIS, HerpNET & FishNET) in collaborative georeferencing as well as the integration and enhancement of advanced machine assisted georeferencing techniques. Finally, the project will be using innovative data mining and cleansing techniques to greatly improve the quality of the database, all in a high throughput context.