Corresponding author: Falko Glöckler (
Academic editor:
The DINA Consortium (DINA = “
The DINA Consortium focuses on an open source software philosophy and on community-driven open development. Contributors share their development resources and expertise for the benefit of all participants. The DINA System is explicitly designed as a loosely coupled set of web-enabled modules. At its core, this modular ecosystem includes strict guidelines for the structure of Web application programming interfaces (APIs), which guarantees the interoperability of all components (
There are three options for developing a DINA module:
create a new module compliant with the specifications (Fig. modify an existing code-base to attain compliance (Fig. wrap a compliant API around existing code that cannot be or may not be modified (e.g., infeasible, dependencies on other systems, closed code) (Fig.
All three of these scenarios have been applied in the modules recently developed: a module for molecular data (SeqDB), modules for multimedia, documents and agents data and a service module for printing labels and reports:
The
In the case of the
The
In our presentation we will explain the DINA development philosophy and will outline benefits for different stakeholders who directly or indirectly use collections data and related research data in their daily workflows. We will also highlight opportunities for joining the DINA Consortium and how to best engage with members of DINA who share their expertise in natural science, biodiversity informatics and geoinformatics.
Falko Glöckler
TDWG 2020
The DINA system is not intended to be a competitive product to other collection management systems. Instead, the DINA Consortium is pushing forward the approach of Open Source developments in a joint community-driven effort in order to maximize the usability and sustainability of the system beyond the availability of resources of individual institutions or vendors.
The DINA system is not intended to be a competitive product to other collection management systems. Instead, the DINA Consortium is pushing forward the approach of Open Source developments in a joint community-driven effort in order to maximize the usability and sustainability of the system beyond the availability of resources of individual institutions or vendors.
First option to contribute to DINA developments: New code designed in a DINA compliant manner to allow for interoperability with the DINA system.
Second option to contribute to DINA developments: Existing software can be refactored in a DINA compliant manner to allow for interoperability with the DINA system.
Third option to contribute to DINA developments: Existing software that cannot be modified for several reasons could be wrapped by a DINA compliant API layer to allow for interoperability with the DINA system.