openDS Public Review

openDS Public Review has been extended!

We are announcing an extension of the openDS public review until September 10th 2024. Due to holidays and other commitments, such as TDWG 2024, several members of our community have indicated that an extension will be welcome. We have decided to extend the review period to give some additional time for review. Please know that any comments or questions are welcome and can be left at the DiSSCo GitHub page.

You can find class and term definitions in our documentation sections. The full JSON schemas are also available in our GitHub repositories.

What is openDS?

openDS is a comprehensive data specification for “Digital Specimens” — digital surrogates of physical specimens with related information.

Key Goals:

1. Support technical implementation of Digital Extended Specimens as described in the as described by Hardisty et al, 2022 paper.
2. Enable an extensible network of biodiversity data records
3. Comply with GBIF’s unified data model
4. Create FAIR, machine-actionable, mutable data objects
5. Standardise digital representation of natural science collection specimens

Current Focus and Future Plans:

• Currently covers data shared through GBIF IPT and BioCASe installations
• Future versions will include more specimen-related data (loans, permits, field notes, etc.)
• Designed to capture specimen data throughout its lifecycle

Why Review Now?

DiSSCo plans to release its Digital Specimen infrastructure by the end of 2024/early 2025. We need your input to upgrade the openDS data model from version 0.3 to a community-accepted version 1.0.

How to Review:

1. Navigate the documentation page for each class and term.
2. Submit questions or comments via GitHub
3. Include term names when providing feedback on specific terms
4. Note that most terms come from existing standards, with some openDS-specific additions
5. We aim to use controlled vocabularies where appropriate. These are not yet part of the documentation

Your feedback is crucial in shaping the future of digital specimen data management. Join us in this important review process!