EarthCube IA: Collaborative Proposal: Enhancing Paleontological and Neontological Data Discovery API

EarthCube IA：协作提案：增强古生物学和新生物学数据发现 API

• 批准号: 1821039
• 负责人: Jocelyn Sessa
• 金额: $ 9.96万
• 依托单位: Academy of Natural Sciences Philadelphia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1821039&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EarthCube; IA; Collaborative; Proposal; Enhancing

Understanding future environmental change requires researchers to access and integrate data from the geological and biological sciences, in order to answer questions about how environmental change will affect life on Earth. In many cases the data needed to answer these questions already exists but, unfortunately, technology has not kept pace with research needs. This places increasing demands on researchers, who have to search for and download data from multiple separate online databases; compile published information from many different literature sources; and track down specimens housed in museum and other collections scattered around the world. The time needed to search and retrieve this information is enormous and, once found, the data often have to be standardized before they can be used. This project will tackle this problem by developing software tools to connect three established, well-supported, and critically important data sources: the Paleobiology Database (PBDB, paleontological, literature based), iDigPaleo (paleontological, specimen based) and iDigBio (neontological, specimen based). This project will allow users of any one of these databases to access and query the others at the same time, returning a much richer, combined set of data to the user. Connecting these resources will open up a whole host of research questions that are currently difficult to answer, even by multiple researchers working as a team. The development of this system will allow scientists to ask and answer new research questions affecting fields as diverse as biogeographic/niche modeling, systematics, functional morphology, evolutionary biology, ecology, climatology, conservation biology, oceanography, and petroleum geology. This project will fundamentally change the nature of the research questions that can be addressed by the scientific community.The connectivity between modern and fossil, and specimen and literature-based resources does not currently exist. The digital infrastructure provided by the composite ePANDDA application programming interfaces (APIs) will streamline and normalize data acquisition, including retrieval from disparate data sources, and will facilitate coordination with future data initiatives. Rather than creating another portal for the aggregation of data, ePANDDA will unify results that normally would have required multiple searches on numerous platforms. For the researcher, this eliminates a significant barrier to data collection and processing. Researchers will now have the ability to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to study earth system processes and the nature of biotic response to environmental change across both space and time. Linking publications to specimens will enrich the potential of museum collections and augment their value for both research and education. The ePANDDA project also provides an opportunity to build collaborative programs that leverage existing education and outreach activities in addition to the primary research goals.

了解未来的环境变化需要研究人员访问和整合来自地质和生物科学的数据，以回答有关环境变化将如何影响地球上生命的问题。在许多情况下，回答这些问题所需的数据已经存在，但不幸的是，技术并没有跟上研究需求的步伐。这对研究人员提出了越来越高的要求，他们必须从多个独立的在线数据库中搜索和下载数据；从许多不同的文献来源汇编已发表的信息；并追踪博物馆和散布在世界各地的其他收藏中的标本。搜索和检索这些信息所需的时间非常长，而且一旦找到，通常必须先对数据进行标准化才能使用。该项目将通过开发软件工具来连接三个已建立的、支持良好且极其重要的数据源来解决这个问题：古生物学数据库（PBDB、古生物学、基于文献）、iDigPaleo（古生物学、基于标本）和 iDigBio（新生物学、标本）基于）。该项目将允许这些数据库中任何一个的用户同时访问和查询其他数据库，从而向用户返回一组更丰富的组合数据。连接这些资源将引发一系列目前难以回答的研究问题，即使是多个研究人员作为一个团队工作也是如此。该系统的开发将使科学家能够提出并回答影响生物地理学/生态位建模、系统学、功能形态学、进化生物学、生态学、气候学、保护生物学、海洋学和石油地质学等多个领域的新研究问题。该项目将从根本上改变科学界可以解决的研究问题的性质。现代资源与化石资源、标本资源与文献资源之间的联系目前还不存在。 复合 ePANDDA 应用程序编程接口 (API) 提供的数字基础设施将简化和标准化数据采集，包括从不同数据源检索，并将促进与未来数据计划的协调。 ePANDDA 不会创建另一个用于聚合数据的门户，而是统一通常需要在多个平台上进行多次搜索的结果。对于研究人员来说，这消除了数据收集和处理的重大障碍。研究人员现在将能够跨学科界限进行合作，研究地球系统过程以及跨空间和时间环境变化的生物反应性质。将出版物与标本联系起来将丰富博物馆藏品的潜力，并增强其研究和教育价值。 ePANDDA 项目还提供了建立合作项目的机会，除了主要研究目标之外，还利用现有的教育和推广活动。