SCAN - the Southwest Collections of Arthropods Network (http://symbiota1.acis.ufl.edu /scan/portal/) - is the first regional arthropod biodiversity data network that utilizes the Symbiota software platform (http://symbiota.org/tiki/tiki-index.php). Since its origin in 2012 SCAN has unified and newly created specimen-level occurrence records on-line pertaining to nearly 15 south-western United States arthropod collections; including more than 515,000 records that represent some 18,000 species. However, due to the disproportionately mismatched diversity versus taxonomic expertise for the region and focal taxa, at least one third of the specimens are not identified (authoritatively or otherwise) to the level of species, with concomitant limitations for derivative taxonomic or evolutionary/ecological research. The member collections are typically separated from each other geographically by distances that prohibit frequent interactions with regional or global experts, except in virtual realm. SCAN has therefore implemented a Filtered Push (FP) based service (http://wiki.filteredpush.org /wiki/) whose primary purpose is to connect high-quality imaged of yet insufficiently identified specimens with suitable experts who can provide identifications remotely. This is achieved through the FP-server system which both records these contributions externally and pushes them back into the source Symbiota platform for review, acceptance, or rejection by the respective collection/node leaders. SCAN is therefore primed to utilize FP at a large scale and with a well circumscribed focal purpose that is relevant to the specific needs of this collections network. We illustrate the SCN/FP workflow, underlying concepts and technology, and current state of implementation and usage. FP allows experts to gradually accumulate credit and "reputations" for their identification contributions, and thus represents a promising means to improve data quality through transparent and distributed expert involvement and attribution.

1. Leveraging Filtered Push Technology to
Enhance Remote Taxonomic Identifications
Nico Franz1, Edward Gilbert1, Neil Cobb2 & Paul Morris3
1
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
2 Merriam-Powell Center, Northern Arizona University
3 Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
TDWD 2013 Annual Conference, Florence, Italy
Biodiversity Data Quality – Issues, Methods and Tools
October 29, 2013

2. Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity
Collections (NSF ADBC Program)
 Digitize 1 billion specimens in 10 years
Currently 9 Thematic Collection Networks with 130 participating institutions

3. SCAN member collections
ASU
Average ~ 480 miles apart
UNM
TAMU
UA
NMSU
NAU
TTU
CSU
DMNS
UCB

4. SCAN digitization objectives
• Digitize 1 million records for southwestern ground-dwelling arthropods
• Produce 16,000 high-resolution images of species; promote identifications
• Leverage an interactive identification & annotation workflow via Symbiota
Gerstaeckeria porosa (LeConte, 1876) – ASUHIC0017017
Crotanius trivittatus (Champion, 1908) – ASUHIC0012067

5. September, 2013: 510,262 records in SCAN
SCAN ADBC Collections
SCAN ADBC
Ground-Dwelling
Arthropod Records
•
•
•
•
•
•
510,262 specimens in Symbiota
300,984 (59%) georeferenced
338,836 (66%) identified to species
1,016 families
 Primary need:
8,056 genera
remote IDs
17,538 species
SCAN ADBC
Non-Target Taxa
Records
SCAN Broader Impact Collections
SCAN Non-ADBC
Broader Impact
Records

6. Deployment diagram – Symbiota & Filtered Push interaction
New FP Client Tools in Symbiota
Filtered Push3 Node
http://symbiota1.acis.ufl.edu/scan/portal/index.php
http://fp3.acis.ufl.edu/FPAnnotationProcessor-Web/
SCAN Symbiota Portal
• New, remotely added identifications are grounded in the Annotation Ontology.
• FP team has developed Symbiota-integrated PHP Client Tools that record and
push new annotations to the external FP infrastructure where statistics are kept.
Source: http://wiki.filteredpush.org/wiki/FP-Medium_deployment_for_SCAN

7. Current workings & look in SCAN

8. Homepage – http://symbiota1.acis.ufl.edu/scan/portal/index.php
Images

9. Image thumbnail gallery – some are insufficiently identified
ID = Epicaerus
ID = Scarabaeidae

10. More information – occurrence records, images – is clicks away

11. More information – occurrence records, images – is clicks away

12. Experts can log in and view a taxon-tailored IDs Needed tab
This is the scarab
in need of an ID

13. Experts can log in and view a taxon-tailored IDs Needed tab
Occurrence tab
This is the scarab
in need of an ID

14. Experts can log in and view a taxon-tailored IDs Needed tab
Occurrence tab
This is the scarab
in need of an ID
Images tab

15. Adding a new identification in the Determination History tab
 Scientific Name is linked to the
SCAN Taxonomic Thesaurus.

16. The fully integrated Symbiota tab for IDs is Filtered Push-enabled
• New = current ID
• Image remapping
• Submission to FP

17. Simultaneous ID recording internally (SCAN) and externally (FP)
Confirmation
in SCAN

18. Simultaneous ID recording internally (SCAN) and externally (FP)
Confirmation
in SCAN
AO translation
Confirmation
in FP3 node
Annotations
list view

19. Simultaneous ID recording internally (SCAN) and externally (FP)
Confirmation
in SCAN
AO translation
Confirmation
in FP3 node
Annotations
detail view
RDF / XML
translation

20. Future work – 1st production-level Symbiota / FP implementation
• Optimization of SCAN "IDs Needed" user interface – thumbnail view
• Roll-out to the SCAN expert community, creation of expert profiles in FP
• Expansion beyond SCAN members, diversified notification systems
"Curculionidae" ("Calles" sp.) – ASUHIC0031695

21. Acknowledgments
• TDWG 2013 Symposium organizers – Antonio Mauro Saraiva
• James Hanken, Maureen Kelly & David Lowery – http://wiki.filteredpush.org/wiki/
• ASUHIC digitization team – Sangmi Lee, David Fleming, Soon Flynn, Andrew Jansen,
Catherine Mercado, Joshua Persson, Sarah Shirota, Michael Shillingburg.
• NSF Award EF-1207107.
"Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: Southwest Collections of Arthropods
Network (SCAN): a Model for Collections Digitization to Promote Taxonomic and Ecological Research."
https://sols.asu.edu
http://symbiota1.acis.ufl.edu/scan/portal/index.php
http://symbiota.org/tiki/tiki-index.php
http://taxonbytes.org