63urn:lsid:arphahub.com:pub:0E0032F4-55AE-5263-8B3C-F4DD637C30C2Biodiversity Information Science and StandardsBISS2535-0897Pensoft Publishers10.3897/biss.2.26083260838912Conference AbstractSPNHC Digitisation and collections DataAnimaliaPlantaeProtozoaBiodiversity & ConservationBiogeographyBioinformaticsCatalogsDatabasesDigital preservationLibrary & Information ScienceNatural HistoryOpen access publishingWorldWho Has Time for Biological Collections Data Quality Feedback? Maybe a Community Can HelpMayfieldTeresa Jegelewicztmayfield.utepbc@jegelewicz.net182183Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, United States of AmericaMuseum of Southwestern Biology, University of New MexicoAlbuquerqueUnited States of AmericaUniversity of Texas at El Paso Biodiversity Collections, El Paso, United States of AmericaUniversity of Texas at El Paso Biodiversity CollectionsEl PasoUnited States of America
2018130620182e2608363E3F51B-0C1B-5C87-9986-4AE99AC0A821129440622042018Teresa MayfieldThis is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
At an institution without a permanent collections manager or curators, who has time to publish data or research issues on that data? Collections with little or no institutional support often benefit from passionate volunteers who continually seek ways to keep them relevant. The University of Texas at El Paso Biodiversity Collections (UTEP-BC) has been cared for in this manner by a small group of dedicated faculty and emeritus curators who have managed with no budget to care for the specimens, perform and publish research about them, and publish a good portion of the collections data. An IMLS grant allowed these dedicated volunteers to hire a Collections Manager who would migrate the already published data from the collections and add unpublished specimen records from the in-house developed FileMaker Pro database to a new collection management system (Arctos) that would allow for better records management and ease of publication. Arctos is a publicly searchable web-based system, but most collections also see the benefit of participation with biodiversity data aggregators such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), iDigBio, and a multitude of discipline-specific aggregators. Publication of biodiversity data to aggregators is loaded with hidden pathways, acronyms, and tech-speak with which a curator, registrar, or collections manager may not be familiar. After navigating the process to publish the data the reward is feedback! Now data can be improved, and everyone wins, right? In the case of UTEP-BC data, the feedback sits idle as the requirements of the grant under which the Collection Manager was hired take precedence. It will likely remain buried until long after the grant has run its course. Fortunately, the selection of Arctos as a collection management system allowed the UTEP-BC Collection Manager to confer with others publishing biodiversity data to the data aggregators. Members of the Arctos Community have carried on multiple conversations about publishing to aggregators and how to handle the resulting data quality flags. These conversations provide a synthesis of the challenges experienced by collections in over 20 institutions when publishing biodiversity data to aggregators and responding (or not) to their data quality flags. This presentation will cover the experiences and concerns of one Collection Manager as well as those of the Arctos Community related to publishing data to aggregators, deciphering their data quality flags, and development of appropriate responses to those flags.
Data qualityData transformationSymposiumWorkshopData integrationCapacity buildingCommunity buildingCollections data managementFeedback assessmentInstitute of Museum and Library Services100000208http://doi.org/10.13039/1000002082018Joint Meeting of the Society for the Preservation of
Natural History Collections (SPNHC) and Biodiversity Information
Standards (TDWG)SPNHC+TDWG 2018Dunedin, New ZealandCollections and data in an uncertain worldPresenting author
Teresa J. Mayfield
Presented at
SPNHC+TDWG 2018 Conference Symposium: Challenges for Implementing Collections Data Quality Feedback: synthesizing the community experience
Hosting institution
University of Texas at El Paso Biodiversity Collections
Grant title
Natural History Collection Stewardship for the 21st Century at the University of Texas at El Paso
Hosting institution
University of Texas at El Paso Biodiversity Collections