A talk presented January 20, 2013 in the Indo-US Joint Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment in Bangalore, India.

1. Building and aggregating species pages
Cynthia Parr, PhD @cydparr
Species Pages Group @eol
Chief Scientist

2. Goals
1. To provide some practical information about
tools for capturing and sharing species
information
2. To get feedback on EOL tools and processes
for future improvement
3. To discuss good ideas that can inspire each
other as we work both together and
separately

3. Show of hands
• Do you contribute to a website(s) already?
• Do you run your own website?
• Would you rather just publish scientific
papers?

4. Outline
• EOL is part of a sharing network
• Standards for sharing species descriptions
• Tools for capturing content
– Direct on EOL
– Multimedia repositories
– Wikis
– Literature
– Specialist web sites
• Sharing content with EOL
• Curating EOL content
• Using content from EOL

5. EOL is part of a rich data sharing ecosystem about
living organisms
From Parr et al. 2012. Evolutionary informatics: unifying knowledge about the diversity of life.
Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26: 94-103.

6. The GBIF hub has subnetworks

7. Key individuals seek out hubs
TOLWeb

8. EOL Schema Sources: Data standards
Content type Standards used
• Taxa • Darwin Core Archive
• Attribution & licensing • Dublin & Darwin Core
• Text objects & links • Species Profile Model,
• Multimedia Plinian Core, etc.
• Dublin (+ Audubon Core)

9. NCBI
Taxonomy is framework
Not the goal
ITIS and COL

10. Use your own classification standard
You do NOT have to follow a designated classification
Share your taxonomic hierarchy with your EOL content
EOL does its best to match the content with pages we
already have
Contribute to COL and ITIS (and their partners)
Then all projects will have access

11. Outline
• EOL is part of a sharing network
• Standards for sharing species descriptions
• Tools for capturing content
– Direct on EOL
– Multimedia repositories
– Wikis
– Literature
– Specialist web sites
• Sharing content with EOL
• Curating EOL content
• Using content from EOL

12. Contributing to EOL
• Flexibility
• Blank canvas
• Consider curating
http://eol.org/info/contribute

13. Members can add text directly to EOL

15. Choosing a subject determines where
on the EOL page the information is
displayed
Also important for other applications
that want to use the content

16. Be sure to add references

17. If you have a lot of content
• Work with a hub like India Biodiversity Portal
• Spreadsheet upload to EOL
• Find a specialist website that is already a
partner with EOL

18. http://eol.org/info/cp_getting_started
Spreadsheet method

19. General images & video flickr.com/groups/encyclopediaoflife
>3000 people, 163K images

20. Professional research images morphbank.org

21. Or add to online museum catalogue

22. Or add to online museum catalogue

24. Citizen science images inaturalist.org

25. Other multimedia repositories
Sound Video
Soundcloud.com

26. Wikipedia/Wikimedia
BUT
Only the English version, starts unreviewed
Highly formatted, not always consistent
Not always easy to review
About 150K taxa, 122K images
Easy to add new taxa

27. Biodiversity Heritage Library
biodiversitylibrary.org

28. Pensoft.net
• Pensoft has a process to
generate EOL-compliant
XML for new species
• Also sends images to
Morphbank, specimens
to GBIF
• They registered the URL
at EOL
• Our script checks for
changes once a day
• EOL Open Access Fund

29. Plazi.org
GoldenGATE
markup
Published articles Zootaxa
Smithsonian Contributions
Others
Photo credit: DIYLibrarian, Flickr CC-BY-SA

30. If you need your own
specialist website
Prepare to raise funds for a programmer
Spend a lot of effort populating and keeping it
running
OR try

31. .eu

32. LifeDesks

33. Outline
• EOL is part of a sharing network
• Standards for sharing species descriptions
• Tools for capturing content
– Direct on EOL
– Multimedia repositories
– Wikis
– Literature
– Specialist web sites
• Sharing content with EOL
• Curating EOL content
• Using content from EOL

34. Working with existing EOL partner?
• Using their tools
Add content
Follow • May need to add special tags
• May need to change licenses
instructions • May need to add to an EOL group
• Your content will be updated
That’s all! automatically whenever we harvest
from that partner

35. If you already have your own website
(or spreadsheet)
• Create EOL member account
Register on EOL • Add content partner with contact info
Prepare resource • Spreadsheet OR Darwin Core Archive
• EOL will work with you
file
• Provide file for one time upload
Add resource file • Or provide URL and set harvest frequency
• Notifications of traffic statistics
Receive feedback • Curation actions
• Comments (Please respond!)

36. http://eol.org/info/cp_getting_started
Darwin Core Archive

37. Content partner registration
http://eol.org/info/cp_getting_started

41. Don’t forget the logo

42. http://eol.org/info/cp_getting_started

44. Outline
• EOL is part of a sharing network for species
• Standards for sharing species descriptions
• Tools for capturing content
– Direct on EOL
– Multimedia repositories
– Wikis
– Literature
– Specialist web sites
• Sharing content with EOL
• Curating EOL content
• Using content from EOL

45. EOL curation http://eol.org/info/curators
• Trust, untrust, hide taxon associations
• Add new taxon association
• Leave a comment
• Add a rating

46. • Set preferred classifications
• Add and set preferred
common names
More info at:
http://eol.org/info/curators

47. http://eol.org/info/curators
• Register as a member at eol.org
• Edit your profile and provide your credentials
– For assistant curator, just your real name
– For full curator need academic affiliation OR
publication reference OR referral from another full
curator
• Curate only as much as you are able

48. Outline
• EOL is part of a sharing network
• Standards for sharing species descriptions
• Tools for capturing content
– Direct on EOL
– Multimedia repositories
– Wikis
– Literature
– Specialist web sites
• Sharing content with EOL
• Curating EOL content
• Using content from EOL

49. Using content from EOL
Manually API
No need to ask
Docs at http://eol.org/api
permission
Follow license
conditions Register for an API key
Provide attribution Follow terms of use
Set up either a dynamic
query or refresh a cache of
results

50. Questions?
• Contact our partners at the India Biodiversity Portal
• Contact me at parrc@si.edu
• Use the contact us form on EOL
flickr.com/groups/encyclopediaoflife
inaturalist.org, morphbank.org
biodiversitylibrary.org
pensoft.net, plazi.org
scratchpads.eu
eol.org/info/cp_getting_started
eol.org/info/curators
eol.org/api