Interest group for semantic standards/Linked Open Data in TDWG Luca Matteis, Marie-Angelique Laporte, Elizabeth Arnaud

Semantics For Biodiversity Symposium TDWG 2013, Florence Italy Primer Session Tuesday 4:00 – 5pm (Sala dei Continenti) Semantic Technologies Wednesday 2:30 – 4pm (Sala dei Continenti) Interest Group: Semantic Tools & Ontologies Wednesday 4:30 – 6pm (Giardino d'Inverno) Formal Models Friday 9am – 10:30am (Sala dei Continenti ) Semantic Interoperability Friday 11am – 12:30am (Sala dei Continenti) Follow-up discussion LUNCH on Friday immediately following the last interoperability session – EVERYONE WELCOME

Objective Decide about the creation in TDWG for 'Semantics for Biodiversity’ of : A TDWG interest group ( list of existing ones Or just a TDWG discussion group (using wiki and not officially listed in TDWG interest group)

Introduction Summary of the conclusions of the workshop held in May, in Montpellier A. Develop medium size ontologies that are fit-for-use with multilingual versions - It is important to provide ontologies, controlled vocabularies and metadata standards that will assist in the organization of the data acquired by the community. It seems more appropriate for practical use to propose an organization of the data sets through metadata schemes and knowledge models of smaller size that will provide a solution suitable for modeling realistic problems. B. Open source data promotion to encourage scientists to invest in open source data and to share their own data

Introduction C. Creation an interest group within TDWG – The group will be presented at the next TDWG meeting. The workshop participants will be invited to join the group along side experts from TDWG and GBIF. Every other interested scientist is welcome as well. This group will engage in the promotion of open data standards and will discuss the best solutions to propose for the various domains of biodiversity. D. Develop tools for the group communication and exchange that will be easy to implement, like a wiki page on the TDWG site, and simple to use, such as mailing lists, dedicated wiki. The main interest essentially focuses on the dynamic set up of the interest group. E. Definition of a research question by the group members that could be tested as a use case on multiple platforms, using existing ontologies/controlled vocabularies and annotated data.

Introduction F. Promote URIs that resolve. G. Encourage the group to publish the availability of its data and metadata in RDF H. Stimulate peer reviewing of published annotated data to support solving integration problems I. Promote the use of metadata to support the quality and document the provenance of the datasets

Discussion Is there a need for such a group? Discussion or interest group ? If not, what alternative is possible to promote semantics/LOD for biodiversity? Collaboration with other existing groups : How to organize such a group with the existing TDWG ones that address challenges within same scope RDF, Metadata, DarwinCore, etc? Composition of such a group? Who should be part of such a group? active contributors? What should be the first 3 actions of the group if created? If there is a discussion group, what would be the tools needed to make the group sustainable? What main topics ? If there is an interest group: Who should be convening it? (We could propose the Semantics4Biodiv site to keep an active blog of the focus) What is their interest in semantics/LOD/RDF and what they could bring? Do they know available LOD in Biodiversity, in agrobiodiversity? Is there any clear actions taken in their projects for the publishing following Open data standadrs, LOD guidelines?

A survey … To better understand the needs expressed : – creation of an interest group for semantic standards/Linked Open Data – what can I bring to that group ? – what really exists ? What can I reuse ? – With who can I collaborate ? The results of the survey will be published as a RDF file (FOAF, DC, …) on the S4biodiv website (or elsewhere ?)