Collaborative Biodiversity Collections Computing

堪萨斯大学研究中心公司获得一笔赠款，用于继续开发和维护用于管理生物收藏的特定软件(http://www.specifysoftware.org)。该合同用于继续维护和支持Specify Version 6软件，完成和改进基本功能，并为该软件制定长期可持续发展计划。指定软件项目通过强大的、专业设计的标本数据管理软件支持生物收集计算。Specify是一个分层的软件平台，旨在与互联网服务集成，并可通过插件进行扩展。Specify是用Java编写的，在三种常见的桌面环境上运行相同：Windows、MacOSX和Linux。它是开放源码许可的，可以免费下载。Specify是美国生物多样性研究中心和博物馆中使用最广泛的计算平台。它目前是分布在90个机构的189个美国藏品的主要生产数据库系统。国际上的兴趣也很高，41家机构的69个收藏品使用它来计算机化它们的持有量信息。在过去四年的NSF获奖期内，Specify的采用率平均每年增长16%，自1998年NSF开始资助该项目以来一直保持着类似的增长率。将物种信息从生物集合转移到互联网仍然是一个巨大的挑战，需要软件、软件支持和创新的网络服务来实现收集数据的工作流程。与博物馆凭证标本相关的分类和地理信息是记录地球上生命的身份和分布的国际数据宝库。除了它们在支持系统学和生态学研究方面的主要作用外，这些物种发生数据对于分析和预测全球范围的气候变化、物种入侵和其他类型的大规模环境扰动所造成的生物影响非常有用。该项目是一项为期10年的努力的一部分，目的是将与美国研究藏品中的生物标本相关的科学信息数字化和移动化。该项目的图像和数字化数据将整合到在线国家资源中，如可在http://digbiocol.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/digistratplanfinaldraft.pdf.获得的社区战略计划中所述

The University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc. is awarded a grant for continued development and maintenance of the Specify software for managing biological collections (http://www.specifysoftware.org) . This award provides for continued maintenance and support of the Specify version 6 software, completion and refinement of essential functionality, and for development of a long-term sustainability plan for the software. The Specify Software Project supports biological collections computing with robust, professionally-engineered specimen data management software. Specify is a layered software platform designed for integration with internet services, and is extendible through plug-ins. Specify is written in Java and runs identically on the three common desktop environments: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It is open source licensed and is free for downloading. Specify is the most widely used computing platform in U.S. biodiversity research centers and museums. It is currently the primary, production database system for 189 U.S. collections located at 90 institutions. International interest is also high with 69 collections at 41 institutions using it to computerize their holdings information. During the previous four-year NSF award period, Specify adoption increased an average of 16% per year and it has had a similar growth rate since 1998 when NSF began funding the project.Mobilizing species information from biological collections to the Internet remains a large challenge, and requires software, software support and innovative network services for collection data workflows. The taxonomic and geographic information associated with museum voucher specimens is an international treasure of data documenting the identity and distribution of life on earth. In addition to their primary role in supporting systematics and ecological research, this species occurrence data is extremely useful for analyzing and predicting biological impacts caused by global scale climate change, species invasions, and other kinds of large-scale environmental perturbation. This project is part of a 10-year effort to digitize and mobilize the scientific information associated with biological specimens held in U.S. research collections. The images and digitized data from this project will be integrated into the online national resource as outlined in the community strategic plan available at http://digbiocol.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/digistratplanfinaldraft.pdf.