NBII Ecoinformatics Technical Working Group

1. NBII Ecoinformatics Technical Working Group Gladys Cotter Mike Frame Ispra, Italy January 2006

2. Why are Data Standards Important? • Facilitate discovery of information • Allow for information exchange • Enhance information management

3. www . NBII . gov My . NBII . gov PORTAL Integrated View Content Management Collaboration Services Integrated / Federated Search Database and Web Geospatial Services Model Services Services Distributed Services Geo - ITIS Thesaurus DIGR Catalog Mapping Geoparsing Catalog Discovery Operations Catalog referencing Resource Catalog Resource and Geospatial text Model Geospatial Dublin Core ( plus ) Database and Service Catalogs Dataset Services Services Web Services Resource Catalog Catalog Catalog Clearinghouse OGC / ISO FGDC / ISO UDDI / WSDL ?? Describe and Discover Consume Distributed Resources Distributed Applications , Databases , Websites , Tools and Models Services Overview

4. CSA/NBII Biocomplexity Thesaurus • Provides us with a common language to describe the scope and content of all resources in NBII system • Using a common language to characterize these resources facilitates their retrieval by users • Created as an NBII partnership with Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) • Five (5) existing thesauri combined into one Biocomplexity Thesaurus

5. Biocomplexity Thesaurus: Using a Controlled Vocabulary http://thesaurus.nbii.gov

6. Latest Thesaurus Developments • Thesaurus Web service developed by ORNL; released to the public on thesaurus.nbii.gov in Spring 2005 • Thesaurus maintenance ongoing • Evaluating ~750 terms suggested by nodes for inclusion in the Biocomplexity • 2005-2006 focus: • Adding ~3000 terms for fire ecology and management to support FRAMES and nodes addressing fire issues • Joint web-service with EPA/EU Ecoinformatics

7. NBII & EIONET Joint Project

8. Project Background • Project “birthed” at the DC Ecoinformatics meeting in May 2005 • Goals • Identify specific collaborative efforts beneficial to everyone • Improve access to environmental information • Leverage expertise of participants • Begin to address the multi-lingual challenges • Develop a “working tool”

9. Current Capabilities http://thesaurus.nbii.gov/SearchNBIIThesaurus/

10. Current Capabilities - NBII “endangered species” http://thesaurus.nbii.gov/SearchNBIIThesaurus/

11. Current Capabilities - EIONET “endangered species” http://thesaurus.nbii.gov/SearchNBIIThesaurus/

12. Challenges • Thesaurus scope, intent, purpose, and coverage is different • NBII = sub-discipline of environment • Endangered species • Broader Terms:Species , Special status species , Taxa • EIOINET = broad environment • Broader Terms:environmental protection

13. Potential areas to pursue - thesaurus • Pulling results from both sources simultaneously • Addressing “scope” and level issues • Deploying to a test audience • Implementing within cataloging tools • Implementing within querying tools

14. Joint SPIRE Activities

15. Joint SPIRE Activities • Research project in the area of Invasive species Water hyacinth clogging the Ortega River (Photo: Don Schmitz

16. Additional Areas • Web-services • Registries • Deployment • Geospatial Standards (OGIS) • SPIRE activities

17. Questions, Comments, Give us feedback on Search:: http://www.nbii.gov/search/search.html Take A look at the site: http://thesaurus.nbii.gov

18. What is SKOS • Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS) • Sponsored by the WC3 • Specifications and standards to support the use of thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, terminologies, glossaries and other types of controlled vocabulary within the framework of the semantic web. • An application of RDF

19. USGS Research Needs • Semantic Searching and Analysis • Distributed modeling • Consuming data • Model reuse • Modeling standards for sharing • Mini/multi thesaurus applications

20. USGS Research Needs – continued • Geospatial technologies • Gazetteer aided searching • Geo-parsing of data • Semantic models for species analysis • Adoption & intersection of registries

21. NBII Search Activities

22. NBII BioBot Features

23. NBII BioBot Features • Simple single search box interface • All relevant resources are returned (user doesn’t have to know what where the resource comes from or what type of resource it is) • i.e. If the resource is housed at a university, federal agencies or if the resource contains to a mapping application, data set, teacher lesson plan, etc. • Tabbed interface allows users to view “All” results by default, or select on specific resource types (i.e. Maps, Images, Journal articles, etc.) • Scientifically creditable resources cataloged and identified by NBII partners using the Dublin Core standard are “weighted” higher than any crawled/harvested resource found on the internet. • Controlled Subjects, species names, place names given highest weights; Title, Creator, Publisher, and Description also weighted • NBII Biocomplexity Thesaurus operating in background to supplement user search terms with synonymous terms thereby not requiring the user to know all of the variations of a term.

24. NBII Search: with & without • Example: “alien species”

25. Google and NBII BioBot

26. Google and NBII

27. Summary • Google’s mission: Make the entire Web universe findable • Google cannot interpret context of a user’s search • What a document contains • Google’s ranking algorithm is based upon inbound links; resources more often linked to are ranked higher • NBII’s mission: Make the biological Web findable • NBII interprets context with metadata (subject, taxonomic, geographic) • What a document is about • NBII’s ranking algorithm is based upon weightings of metadata fields, and weighting of “Reliable/High Quality/Trusted sources

28. Questions, Comments, Give us feedback on Search:: http://www.nbii.gov/search/search.html Take A look at the site: http://thesaurus.nbii.gov