Welcome to DiSSCoTech

Data is most reusable where data types are simple and easy to describe, and when the community is organized and collaborative.
— Quote from “FAIR in practice”
Our Data Types
Our data types are formed around the basic concept of a Digital Specimen, being a digital representation on the Internet of a physical object in a natural science collection.

Our most recent blog posts on technical design of the DiSSCo infrastructure
Why Spreadsheets Matter?
A news story published on Aug 6, 2020, in The Verge had the following to say: “Sometimes it’s easier to rewrite genetics than update Excel“. The story was about a known problem where Excel by default converts gene names to dates . You can try this out at home with the gene symbol “MARCHF1” —Continue reading “Why Spreadsheets Matter?”
Identifiers and contextual data
Persistent identifiers, their links to other identifiers and various contextual data are essential components of the DiSSCo architectural design. Here is a brief example to demonstrate the importance of these identifiers, linking them and providing enough contextual information to perform operations on the digital specimen objects. The example here also highlights some of the challengesContinue reading “Identifiers and contextual data”
Roundup of recent news
A lot has happened since our last post here. So a roundup of recent news. Our very own Wouter Addink presented DiSSCo at the Chinese national biodiversity informatics congress. This is a great initiative to facilitate global conversations around data and infrastructures. Several members of the DiSSCo Technical Team and members of DiSSCo Prepare WP5Continue reading “Roundup of recent news”
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Our Technical Team
The members of our technical team are all different, with diverse backgrounds, skills, and expertise to bring to the design of DiSSCo.
