Lead: CETAF

The tasks under WP2 are intended to achieve consolidation of certain dimensions (information, engagement and exploitation) related to the community, which will ensure the necessary increase of the IRL in the organisational dimension. Collaboration with CETAF will multiply the impact.

Task 2.1 – Consolidate channels of participation of NNs in the development of DiSSCo

Task 2.2 – Identify means to sustainably collect, aggregate and analyse information from NNs

Task 2.3 – Provide entry-point resources for the DiSSCo Helpdesk

Lead: Senckenberg Gesellschaft fur Naturforschung

This Work Package aims to advance DiSSCo’s data infrastructure based on its Digital Specimen architecture (DSarch) and core end-user services (e-services) that will rely on this infrastructure for reading, writing, processing and annotating data. These services are the European Loans and Visits System (ELViS), the Unified Curation and Annotation System (UCAS), the Collections Digitisation Dashboard (CDD), and the Specimen Data Refinery services (SDR). The Work Package also aims to prepare for operation under the ERIC by advancing the provisional DiSSCo Data Management Plan, including supporting documentation in preparation for the distributed operation and continued development of the data infrastructure and end-user services. These activities will strengthen DiSSCo’s IRL with reference to technological readiness.

Task 3.1 Further develop the piloted Digital Specimen Architecture (DSarch) into a minimum valuable product

Task 3.2 Advancement of end-user Services through integration with core infrastructure and continued e-services development

Task 3.3 Update and advance the DiSSCo DMP for machine actionability and create supporting documentation

Lead: Natural History Museum London

The biodiversity data community has made good progress in developing new information standards during the SYNTHESYS+, ICEDIG and DiSSCo Prepare projects [Hobern et al 2022 https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.8.e98593, Hardisty et al. 2020 https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.6.e54280]. These standards, like the openDS specification describing the Digital Specimen data model, APIs and ontology, are key to advancing our future ambitions and ensuring interoperability between the DiSSCo RI and other infrastructures.

WP4 will continue to support and enable this work, ensuring that the different standards reach the level of maturity required for DiSSCo and that the communities remain engaged. 

We will support the testing and documentation of existing tools that aim to implement standards and bridge gaps between those who create data and the needs of those that use the data [e.g., Marcer et al 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13208]. This will include engaging with our user community and running workshops to increase adoption and address barriers to standards adoption and use. We will support the work of WP3 by documenting and describing best practices for using data created from DiSSCo services.

Task 4.1 Standards interoperability

Task 4.2 Standards adoption and use

Lead: Naturalis Biodiversity Center

WP5 includes Tasks that focus on the coordination, support and communication actions of the Project.

Task 5.1 Day-to-Day Management

Task 5.2 Support to governance bodies of DiSSCo RI

Task 5.3 Coordination of dissemination, exploitation and communication activities