Distributing Data with Distributed Objects: A Prototype for a Plant Names Database

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This project will prototype and implement an Internet-based data exchange architecture, the "Authority Data Server" (ADS), which will nucleate a global information system for taxonomic data in support of biodiversity researchers worldwide. The ADS prototype will use leading-edge informatics technologies, such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and Java, to replicate shared community data -- initially among three institutions: The Harvard University Herbaria, The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK), and The Australian National Herbarium. These institutions have formed a consortium whose goal is to make the combined plant names data from the Gray Herbarium Index (New World plant species), Index Kewensis (global plant species), and Australian Plant Names Index available as a shared and replicated authority resource on the Internet as the combined "Plant Names Index." This SGER proposal requests funding to implement a proof-of- concept using data from Royal Botanic Garden's "Authors of Plant Names" - a community authority work endorsed by the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases as the core data set. A functional prototype ADS system will demonstrate the feasibility of the larger "Plant Names Index" as well as provide a working example of a distributed object approach to authority data distribution. The establishment of the latter will increase the adoption and integration of on- line taxonomic authority files at research institutions worldwide. The resulting architecture and methods will be a significant contribution to the development of the US National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) within the context of an international collaboration which is unprecedented in the history of the biodiversity informatics community.