Collaborative Research: ABI Development: Symbiota2: Enabling greater collaboration and flexibility for mobilizing biodiversity data

美国的生物馆藏已经积累了超过5亿个标本，但其中只有14%被数字化了；因此，我们需要大大扩展现有的工具和方法，以有效地数字化标本数据。该项目通过改造Symbiota解决了这一需求，Symbiota是美国研究收藏中最广泛使用的动员标本的软件平台之一。Symbiota是一个在线生物多样性数据管理软件平台，它集成了来自数据提供商网络的数据和图像。它帮助从766个自然历史收藏中动员了超过3700万个标本记录，是创建大型协作数据社区以共享和展示生物多样性数据的最成功平台之一。Symbiota被NSF推进生物馆藏数字化计划资助的74%的项目所使用，因此是一个关键的平台，可以帮助数字化美国馆藏中尚未数字化的约4.3亿标本。Symbiota的成功很大程度上归功于它较低的学习曲线和一套强大的工具，用于记录物种的发生，并将它们与图像和详细的分类描述相结合。但它的广泛使用已经产生了关于如何使其更有效的重要反馈。为了实现这一目标并帮助其未来的发展，Symbiota需要进行根本性的重组。该项目将把Symbiota转变为一个新版本，即Symbiota2，以促进贡献，扩大研究用途，丰富教育推广活动，并提高可持续性。Symbiota2将通过促进数据可视化、链接多个数据源（如出版物）、创建更好的数据质量评估工具和监测数据使用情况，增强我们解决广泛的生物多样性相关研究问题的能力。Symbiota到Symbiota2的转换将完全重构其代码结构，以强调模块化并提高可用性和可访问性。通过对Symbiota数据门户的直接管理以及与Symbiota用户社区的协调一致和专门的互动，这种转变将实现以下目标：1)提供RESTful web服务，使数据可以很容易地融入到科学的工作流程中；2)构建一个插件架构，以简化新功能的开发；3)创建一个数据库抽象层，以包括各种后端数据库管理系统；4)通过支持分析和可视化工具增加数据的实用性；5)将图形用户界面（GUI）与其他处理分离，以便可以使用新的GUI。6)加强数据收集，使添加新数据和离线工作更容易。实现这些目标后，Symbiota2将成为一个强大的生物多样性数据管理系统，满足开发人员、数据提供者、研究人员和教育专业人员的需求，并与其他生物多样性倡议进行互操作。请访问该项目的主页symbiota.org了解更多信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Biological collections in the United States have amassed over 500 million specimens but only 14% of these have been digitized; thus we need to greatly expand existing tools and methods to efficiently digitize specimen data. This project addresses this need by transforming Symbiota, one of the most widely used software platforms for mobilizing specimens in US research collections. Symbiota is an online biodiversity data management software platform that integrates data and images from networks of data providers. It has helped mobilize over 37 million specimen records from 766 natural history collections and is one of the most successful platforms for creating large collaborative data communities for sharing and displaying biodiversity data. Symbiota is used by 74% of the projects funded by the NSF Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program and is thus a key platform to help digitize the estimated 430 million specimens in US collections that have yet to be digitized. Symbiota's success is largely due to its low learning curve and powerful set of tools for documenting species occurrences and integrating them with images and detailed taxonomic descriptions. But its widespread use has yielded significant feedback on how it could be made more effective. To accomplish this and aid its future development, Symbiota needs a fundamental restructuring. This project will transform Symbiota into a new version, Symbiota2, to catalyze contributions, expand research use, enrich education-outreach activities, and increase sustainability. Symbiota2 will enhance our ability to address a broad spectrum of biodiversity-related research questions by facilitating data visualization, linking multiple data sources (e.g., publications), creating better tools for data quality assessment, and monitoring data usage.The transformation of Symbiota into Symbiota2 will completely refactor its code structure to emphasize modularity and improve usability and accessibility. This transformation will achieve the following goals, derived through direct management of Symbiota data portals and concerted and dedicated interactions with the Symbiota user community: 1) Provide RESTful web services so that data can be easily incorporated into a scientific workflow, 2) Build a plugin architecture to ease the development of new features, 3) Create a database abstraction layer to include a wide variety of backend database management systems, 4) Increase data utility by supporting analytical and visualization tools, 5) Separate the Graphical User Interface (GUI) from other processing so that new GUIs can be used, and 6) Enhance the data collection by making it easier to add new kinds of data and work offline. With these goals met, Symbiota2 will be a powerful biodiversity data management system fulfilling the needs of developers, data providers, researchers, and education professionals, as well as being interoperable with other biodiversity initiatives. Please visit the project's home page at symbiota.org to learn more.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.