Harmonization of metadata and data lies at the foundation of data sharing, transdisciplinary collaboration, capacity building and community development in a decentral, federated network, as for example proposed by GEOBON for their global biodiversity observing system (GBiOS).

My work focuses on standards that have the aim to empower data providers, including indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) as well as natural sciences collections and data users. Standards that enable participatory decision-making based on rights-based approaches for humans and nature, and that provide visibility to the contributions of data providers and users in highly cooperative endeavors, including analyses of large, complex datasets.

Ethical and legal framework for the DES

Continuing the discussions on “Meeting legal/regulatory, ethical and sensitive data obligations” during the second phase of the community consultation by the alliance for biodiversity knowledge, for which I was one of the moderators, a group of scientists, collection professionals and consultants is working towards defining the functions and characteristics of an ethical and legal framework for the Digital Extended Specimen (DES).

Strengthening cross-continental and interdisciplinary connections, a cooperation between the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) and the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC), brought together members and working groups involved in the publishing of scientific data and publications. The cooperation focused on best practices for presenting data (here: taxonomic authorities) in publications to enable their linking with associated data (Bénichou et al. 2022). The collaboration continued by clarifying copyright and licensing questions for liberating data from publications (Bénichou et al. 2023). This work led to the exploration of the digital public commons concept and the development of approaches towards its implementation in the domain of bio-/geodiversity data and infrastructures (Buschbom et al. 2024 and in preparation).

Following the presentation of one of the keynote talks at a Mobilise COST Action and SYNTHESYS+ workshop (September 29-30, 2021) engaging the community towards “A Loans and Permits Data Standard for Scientific Collections”, I joined the “Permits & Loans” standard developing SYNTHESYS+ working group as associated member (2021-2024). The objectives of the working group included compiling a list of applicable document types (e.g. permits, agreements), their classification into higher level document categories and an typology of terms that reflect the permissions, prohibitions and obligations stated within the documents. As part of this work I developed a proof-of-concept exemplar approach for the automation of collection transactions based on the W3C Open Digital Rights Language ontology. The outcomes of the SYNTHESYS+ working group were published as report in RIO (Schiller et al. 2024a) and as extended conference abstract in BISS (Schiller et al. 2024b).

TDWG Latimer Core collection description standard

In connection with using GRSciColl as infrastructure tool for building a global collections network, and thereby expanding the global catalog’s functionality and data (see “Implementations and Applications”) I joined TDWG‘s Collection Descriptions task group (see TDWG-CD) in 2021 to contribute to the development and the application of the collection description standard (Woodburn et al. 2022, 2023). The standard was named Latimer Core and ratified in February 2024 as independent standard that is extending the TDWG Darwin Core standard. I continue to be involved as member of the Latimer Core maintenance group.

Engagement in the TDWG Collection Description task group was complemented by work in the Darwin Core Material Sample task group from 2021-2022. The aim of the Material Sample task group was to clarify the structure of metadata (Mayfield-Meyer et al. 2022) and to define controlled vocabularies to complement Latimer Core and needed by applications, e. g., GRSciColl and RECODE (Buschbom et al. 2024).

DES backbone and DO specification

My interest is focused on the core structure, building blocks and functions required by the backbone of the Digital Extended Specimen (DES) data infrastructure and the representation of bio-/geodiversity collection objects, information artifacts and collections as Digital Objects (DOs). I contribute as community member by providing comments and reviews to the development of the openDS data model (see Digital Infrastructure and Workflow Development).

TDWG and RDA

I am a member of Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) and the Research Data Alliance (RDA). As a member of TDWG, I am currently engaged in the Latimer Core maintenance group (see above) and the Standards Mapping task group. In the RDA I joined the FAIR Digital Object Fabric (DFIG; see also the FDO-CWFR working group) and the Biodiversity Data Integration interest groups.