TDWG Life Sciences Identifiers Applicability Statement Ben Richardson Review Manager, LSID Applicability Statement Western Australian Herbarium Department of Environment and Conservation urn:lsid:biocol.org:col:15701

Public Review Details at: – Comments open until 26 November

What is an Applicability Statement? An advisory document rather than a specification The “glue” that connects technical specifications Documents how to best apply relevant technical specifications Specifies what is to be done to conform to a specification

Review Process Prior to April 2009 –Submissions on the Applicability Statement (AS) received from 4 peer reviewers Late April 2009 –I agreed to be Review Manager for the LSID AS May 2009 –I requested a revision based on reviewers comments and discussion on the Technical Architecture Group mailing list 22 October –Revision accepted for Public Review 26 October –Public Review begins

Applicability Statement in two sections GUID Applicability Statement LSID Applicability Statement

Part 1. GUID Applicability Statement The GUID AS provides an overview –Documents the recommendations that apply to all GUID technologies There are 6 types of GUID technology –HTTP URI –Life Sciences Identifiers (LSID) –Digital Object Identifiers (DOI)  a type of Handle –Permanent URL (PURL)  a type of HTTP URI –Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) –Handle System

GUID Recommendation Summary One object must have only one GUID Only assign GUIDs to objects for which you are the authority Support the Semantic Web –HTTP GET resolution must be provided –Default metadata response format = TDWG Ontology RDF/XML

Part 2. LSID Applicability Statement Documents best application of LSIDs for biodiversity domain to –Maximise LSID permanence –Explain LSID concepts of “data” and “metadata” –Support the Semantic Web

LSID Recommendation Summary — Maximising Persistence Providers should control domain names used in LSIDs Avoid using your organization’s domain name if it is susceptible to change –If this is problematic, apply to use TDWG’s domain –Case in point: calm.wa.gov.au  dec.wa.gov.au Don’t parse the LSID string (except to resolve it) –E.g. urn:lsid:authority.org:name:1234:2a “authority.org” may no longer own the data “name” might be a person rather than a taxon –Get the metadata to be certain

LSID Recommendation Summary — LSID “data” vs “metadata” LSID “data” must never change Non-binary encoded objects should be served as LSID “metadata” –Taxon name, concept, occurrence data is LSID “metadata” –Images, audio, video is LSID “data”

LSID Recommendation Summary — Semantic Web support Provide a HTTP proxy version of the LSID HTTP GET must retrieve LSID “metadata” by default LSID “metadata” must be RDF/XML –Makes biodiversity data easily accessible to Semantic Web clients that can’t resolve LSIDs

What next? With some care, LSIDs are the best fit for biodiversity data –LSID permanence is enhanced by their independence from Internet protocol –Domain Name requirements can be overcome –Semantic Web clients can be supported –However: HTTP URIs and PURLs are simpler to implement DOIs already exist for publications, use them if available

What next? Use the Applicability Statement –Decide whether LSIDs will work for you If so, implement LSIDs  many projects already have Integrate your GUIDs with everyone else’s data

What next? Complete the TDWG Ontology in RDF

Acknowledgements Reviewers GUID Applicability Statement –Author: Kevin Richards LSID Applicability Statement –Authors: Ricardo Pereira, Kevin Richards, Donald Hobern, Roger Hyam, Lee Belbin, and Stan Blum Lee Belbin  review process

Public Review Comments open until 26 November Merci beaucoup