Biodiversity Data Quality
The goal of this interest group is to discuss, determine, formalize and standardize concepts, problems, policies, metadata, methodologies and mechanisms related to biodiversity data quality, collaboratively and incrementally, and to promote associated best practices throughout the biodiversity informatics community.
Rationale
Data quality is a major concern in biodiversity informatics. The distributed nature of data acquisition and digitization, the specific difficulties imposed by some of the data sub-domains, such as taxonomic data and geographic data, among other aspects, make it important to discuss data quality in biodiversity so that data made available in portals and other systems can be used for various purposes such as education, science, and decision making. Although several initiatives in the biodiversity informatics community have been striving to develop tools and best practices about data quality, we lack a common background and consensus related to concepts, metadata, policies, and methodologies that would increase the synergy in achieving solutions for improving the fitness-for-use of biodiversity data. In this interest group we want to develop this common background and help standardize the way to deal with data quality in the biodiversity informatics community, avoiding duplication of efforts and sharing knowledge and solutions.
Conveners
- Antonio Mauro Saraiva - Universidade de Sao Paulo, Escola Politecnic, São Paulo, Brazil
- Arthur D. Chapman - Australian Biodiversity Information Services, Victoria, Australia
Core members
- Aaike De Wever - Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, BioFresh, Belgium
- Alex Thompson - iDigBio Project, USA
- Allan Koch Veiga - BioComp, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil
- Arturo H. Ariño - GBIF-Spain, Universidad de Navarra (UNAV), Spain
- Christian Gendreau - Canadensys, Canada
- Dag Endresen - GBIF-Norway, Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, Norway
- Daniel Lins da Silva - BioComp, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil
- David Bloom - VertNet, USA
- David Fichtmueller - Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), Germany
- Debbie Paul - iDigBio, USA
- Dimitri Brosens - Belgian Biodiversity Platform, Belgium
- Dmitry Schigel - GBIF, Denmark
- Éamonn Ó Tuama - GBIF, Denmark
- Etienne Américo Cartolano Júnior - BioComp, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil
- Hanna Koivula - Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, Finland
- James Macklin - AAFC National Vascular Plant Collection (DAO), Canada
- Javier Otegui - University of Colorado, USA
- John Wieczorek - Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California Berkeley, USA
- Jorge Rady de Almeida Júnior - University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil
- Laura Russell - VertNet, USA
- Luiz Manoel Rocha Gadelha Junior - National Laboratory for Scientific Computing, Brazil
- Lutz Suhrbier - Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), Germany
- Márcia Beatriz Pereira Domingues - BioComp, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil
- Matthew Collins - ECE University of Florida, iDigBio, Brazil
- Nicolas Noé - Belgian Biodiversity Platform, Belgium
- Rui Figueira - GBIF Portugal, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Portugal
- Vijay Barve - FRLHT, India
Becoming involved
Anyone interested in biodiversity data quality is encouraged to become involved with the Interest Group or any of its Task Groups. Membership of the group is open. If you work with biodiversity data at any level, whether digitization, publication, integration or analysis, and you would like to be able to measure and manage Data Quality to allow others to assess the fitness-for-use of your data, the Biodiversity Data Quality Interest Group may benefit from your involvement.
Please contact the convenor or any core member about how to become involved.
The TDWG process requires that any new Task Group be launched through an Interest Group. The Biodiversity Data Quality Interest Group can facilitate establishment of new Task Groups that relate to this topic. Please contact the convenor to discuss potential projects or join existing Task Groups.