[Nhcoll-l] Converging Digital and Extended Specimens: An observation on nomenclature

Thu Jan 21 13:18:22 EST 2021

Hi Michael

I agree on both counts and have indicated as much to the DiSCCCo folks.  I too was worried that the word “twin” would and could be misconstrued and that the vast amount of additional information provided by the specimen itself would be lost or ignored.  We have struggled in the past with views that once a specimen is digitized that the specimen can be discarded, and I worry that this terminology simply reinforces that obviously incorrect connotation.

I also agree that the coining of a new term for persistent identifiers simply muddies the water even further – unless there is something unique about PIDs that is not already conveyed by existing identifiers – which I am not sure there is.  Our community has struggled with a proliferation of unique identifier systems and no coalescence around a single system that works for everyone.  Adding another one to the mix I fear will not solve the problem but rather exacerbate it.

These are both great discussion threads that I think should be mentioned during the consultation coming up.  I have copied Alex Hardisty who is more involved in the DiSCCCo process that developed both of these terms and may have more insights.

Thanks

Andy

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Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
USA

Tel: (785) 864-3863
Fax: (785) 864-5335
Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>

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From: "Howe, Michael P.A." <mhowe at bgs.ac.uk>
Date: Thursday, January 21, 2021 at 12:09 PM
To: Andrew Bentley <abentley at ku.edu>, "nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu" <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Converging Digital and Extended Specimens: An observation on nomenclature

Dear All,

As the exciting work that many of us have been engaged in for the past 10 - 20 years, to digitze our collections and thereby make them more accessible, grows in support, complexity and achievement, I wish to offer a warning and a comment.

I believe the term "digital twin" should be avoided and replaced by "digital proxy", "digital surrogate" or just "digital specimen". The word twin implies that the digital specimen is absolutely identical to the physical specimen, which it is clearly not. The physical specimen can subjected to new forms of physical analysis and at greater resolutions, in a way that a digital surrogate cannot. Also, the cynic in me knows that before long, a hard pressed administrator will argue that if we have the digital twin we don't need the physical twin.

I am also concerned with the use of the term PID - persistent identifiers. Collections have been using persistent identifiers - unique registration numbers - for over two hundred years (and the British Geological Survey since 1849). Actionable or executable persistent identifiers are a vital tool for linking to objects,  but are a very much newer concept. It seems disingenuous of data scientists not to acknowledge two centuries of good practice (and all the hard work of curators and registrars) and instead use an acronym such as EPID or APID?

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Mike Howe
Chief Curator, British Geological Survey

________________________________
From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Bentley, Andrew Charles <abentley at ku.edu>
Sent: 21 January 2021 16:09
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Consultation on Converging Digital and Extended Specimens: Towards a global specification for data integration

Dear all,

Over the past year several exciting conversations about the possibilities of digital representations of the billions of specimens currently held in the world’s natural history collections. Two concepts—the Digital Specimen<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdissco.tech%2F2020%2F03%2F31%2Fwhat-is-a-digital-specimen%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969878550%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=CwZhpBLJR%2BoOrRFWFeRuq2E8rbwENlrxgQne%2FeGUr70%3D&reserved=0> proposed by the Distributed System of Scientific Collections<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dissco.eu%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969878550%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=dBtaux4UVPgvCXALZtzx1zeXAyk9WoSaBF5HHSDk%2FaI%3D&reserved=0> (DiSSCo) in Europe and the Extended Specimen<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.idigbio.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FBCoN%2FExtending-Biodiversity-Collections-Full-Report%25282%2529.pdf&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969888547%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=S%2FIZDvUONgc%2BlUThTgm1pEAoPQIQm0xHT3%2BvUo2sksI%3D&reserved=0> emerging from the Biological Collections Network<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbcon.aibs.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969888547%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=Ruh6tGsFuazocC4v2LuW4Ney9rUMsF1Ez7mY%2FbDN0CM%3D&reserved=0> (BCoN) in the United States—are now aligning towards a shared vision that connects all information related to a specimen, creating in effect “digital twins” for the materials held in scientific collections.

Plans for the alliance <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.allianceforbio.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969898535%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=68mQPF5fxoRwSs9SEJ8dyxO0Ksh7mHYckXgGLdleoRc%3D&reserved=0> consultation on Converging Digital and Extended Specimens: Towards a global specification for data integration<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.allianceforbio.org%2Fpost%2Fconverging-digital-and-extended-specimens-towards-a-global-specification-for-data-integration&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969898535%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=lKll7hhjysiuIx55rmhrELCj72AzVFQ1dgrkEQpz0L4%3D&reserved=0> are progressing well.

Beginning in February, the consultation<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fesdsconsult&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969908527%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=LDw808RHKP%2B1fmX363iyzH%2BtZfzXbccz05quZxWOOkc%3D&reserved=0> will seek to engage the wider community on a handful of topics that have technical, financial, social, governance and professional implications that require broader discussion and consensus. The consultation aims to expand participation in the process, build support for further collaboration, identify key use cases, and develop an initial roadmap for community adoption and implementation.

GBIF, DiSCCo, iDigBio, ALA, and the Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), among others, invite you to register for one of the two virtual opening sessions that will be held on February 16 by following the links below and then to become involved in the Discourse consultation discussion process.

Session 1 6:00 UTC<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fus02web.zoom.us%2Fmeeting%2Fregister%2FtZcodemvrD0vHdXJqojDgS3KACD8bbXorB-D&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969918531%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=AVdmOwyF8cxMANqAtZ%2FKqy9%2FVsnOYXn9KrLxs2IIc4o%3D&reserved=0>

Session 2 15:00 UTC<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fus02web.zoom.us%2Fmeeting%2Fregister%2FtZwkf-2rrTkjE9zZIWu18G3DgDUHAGSyELz1&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969918531%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=u8xlg7NJgpMojDI2RDGb83mJlcVlgMfKLuP5xirCx9Q%3D&reserved=0>

The GBIF community forum landing page for the consultation<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscourse.gbif.org%2Ft%2Fabout-the-digital-extended-specimen-category%2F2394&data=04%7C01%7Cabentley%40ku.edu%7C6ec2b3e9831f4ac20bb508d8be37c148%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637468493969928520%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=xrc659Qfn8UOsfKWg3dXVjBxKtqVHgd4pPGuXV9%2FvTE%3D&reserved=0> is also now live.  This page will hold guidance on the consultation process with links to the discussion threads.  Please see links on the landing page to more background documents. If you are a new user of the GBIF community forum you will need to register.

The organizers are excited by the large attendance at recent related events and expect a thoughtful and robust consultation.

Thanks

Andy (on behalf of BCoN)

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Andy Bentley

Ichthyology Collection Manager

University of Kansas

Biodiversity Institute

Dyche Hall

1345 Jayhawk Boulevard

Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561

USA

Tel: (785) 864-3863

Fax: (785) 864-5335

Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>

http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>

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