TDWG Working Sessions

19 - 22 February, 2024

The TDWG Working Sessions give interest and task groups an opportunity to introduce their work to a wider audience and receive feedback on progress and future plans.

The same Zoom “meeting” will be used for all sessions. Request the Zoom login info via email.

• The following groups will be holding working sessions:
• Latimer Core (Collections Description Interest Group)
• Mineralogy Extension Task group
• Attribution Interest Group
• Access to Biological Collections Data (a maintenance group)
• Material Sample Task Group
• Audio Visual Core (a maintenance group)
• Taxonomic Concept Schema Maintenance Group
• Technical Architecture Group
• Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen
• Mapping between Standards

Please see details below for meeting date-time and a short description of the group’s purpose.

Mon, Feb 19

Latimer Core (Collections Description Interest Group)

15:00 - 16:30 UTC Translate to your timezone

The Latimer Core (LtC) is a soon-to-be-ratified TDWG standard that supports describing collections above the item level. Authors of the standard will be on-hand to describe the standard and answer questions.

Conveners: Sharon Grant, Janeen Jones, Kate Webink, Matt Woodburn

Mineralogy Extension Task Group

17:00 - 18:30 UTC Translate to your timezone

This task group was established to extend the Darwin Core with terms that are relevant to Mineralogy, and thereby to enable an informatics infrastructure among mineral science collections similar to the one operating in biodiversity sciences.

Conveners: Ben Norton, Rachel Wolcott

Tue, Feb 20

Attribution Interest Group

14:00 - 15:00 UTC Translate to your timezone

The purpose of Attribution Interest Group is to enhance existing standards for recording and publishing attribution for the maintenance, curation, and digitization of physical and digital objects, with a special emphasis on biodiversity collections.

Conveners: Anne Thessen, Matt Woodburn

Access to Biological Collection Data (ABCD)

15:00 - 16:30 UTC Translate to your timezone

The purpose of the ABCD Content Definition Group is to foster accessibility of existing and emerging biological collection data banks at the international level by developing and maintaining a comprehensive and commented schema for biological collection records (ABCD Schema)

Conveners: Walter Berendsohn, Anton Güntsch, David Ficthmueller

Material Sample Task Group

20:30 - 22:00 UTC Translate to your timezone

This task group recommended a number of changes to the Darwin Core to better represent how material samples of all kinds are represented in data records. Those changes have been incorporated into the Darwin Core so this session will be used to gather additional feedback and identify any work that still needs to be done.

Convener: Teresa J. Mayfield

Wed, Feb 21

Audiovisual Core

17:00 - 18:30 UTC Translate to your timezone

The Audiovisual Core maintenance group is responsible for maintaining the various components of the Audiovisual Core standard. That includes managing suggested changes to the vocabulary, providing usage guidelines and examples, and ensuring the preservation and stability of metadata related to components of the standard.

Convener: Steve Baskauf

Taxonomic Concept Schema Maintenance Group

20:30 - 22:00 UTC Translate to your timezone

This maintenance group is nearing completion of the next version of the Taxonomic Concept Schema, a critical specification for biodiversity informatics. An overview of the new schema will be provided and outstanding issues discussed.

Convener: Niels Klazenga

Thu, Feb 22

Technical Architecture Group

13:00 - 14:30 UTC Translate to your timezone

The purpose of the Technical Architecture Group (TAG) is to guide ongoing development of the TDWG technical architecture and advise the Executive and membership on matters relating to the principles, strategies and practice for maintaining the common technical framework essential to TDWG’s mission to develop, adopt and promote standards and practice for the recording and exchange of biodiversity data.

TAG Chair: Ben Norton

Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen

15:00 - 16:30 UTC Translate to your timezone

This task group aims to create a TDWG standard that clarifies the levels (depth) of digitization [of or about a specimen] and the minimum information captured and published at each level. It will help to ensure that enough data are captured, curated and published against specific requirements so they are useful for the widest range of possible purposes; as well as making it easier to consistently measure the extent of digitization achieved over time and to set priorities for remaining work.

Conveners: Elspeth Haston, Cat Chapman

Mapping between Standards

17:00 - 18:30 UTC Translate to your timezone

[A soon to be established task group of the Technical Architecture Group.]
The Standards Mapping Task Group will assess the current landscape of mappings for TDWG standards and review common ways of expressing mappings. It will recommend one or more of those ways to the TDWG Technical Architecture Group (TAG) to be adopted as the TDWG recommendation for expressing mappings. The group will support standard authors to express between-standard mappings so as to be easily found, read and understood by users.

Conveners: David Fichtmueller, Holly Little