1. Data Exchange Standards The Power of Being Stupidly Simple Chuck Miller Missouri Botanical Garden TDWG 2008, Fremantle October 24, 2008

2. KISS

3. Simple Short, brief Small words Limit of 7 things 2 dimensions Primary colors, crayons

4. Simple Thoughts Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. Albert Einstein Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else. Leonardo da Vinci

5. Simple vs Complex ABCD Darwin Core DateLastModified InstitutionCode CollectionCode CatalogNumber ScientificName BasisofRecord Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species Subspecies ScientificNameAuth or IdentifiedBy YearIdentified MonthIdentified DayIdentified TypeStatus CollectorNumber FieldNumber Collector YearCollected MonthCollected DayCollected JulianDay TimeOfDay ContinentOcean Country StateProvince County Locality Longitude Latitude CoordinatePrecision BoundingBox MinimumElevation MaximumElevation MinimumDepth MaximumDepth Sex PreparationType IndividualCount PreviousCatalogNumber RelationshipType RelatedCatalogItem Notes

6. The Power of Simple Darwin Core is the most commonly used exchange format in history Despite the use of just XML, incomplete and inconsistent data, no taxonomic concepts, and multiple versions Why?

7. We Need Simple Billions of data records Thousands of small institutions Limited staff, limited computing resources Limited network access This can’t be denied

8. Add, Don’t Replace A light version of every TDWG standard exchange format –ABCD – DarwinCore –TCS - ?? –SDD - ?? –SPM - ?? Entry level, scalable to full standard

9. The Power of 3