Difference between revisions of "Diversity Workbench"

Revision as of 16:31, 19 March 2014

The modularized Diversity Workbench (=DWB) represents a virtual research environment for multiple scientific purposes with regard to management and analysis of life sciences data. The framework is appropriate to store different kinds of bio- and geodiversity data and facilitates the processing of ecological, molecularbiological, observational, collection and taxonomic data. It is capable and flexible enough to be applied as data storage unit for institutional data repositories. The DWB is set up on a xml-enabled relational database system. Clients of every database of the Workbench are used as stand-alone applications and provide supporting functions to clients of corresponding databases. This results in a high flexibility with regard to the conceptual design, enabling sophisticated user administration and a rapid setup of project-specific and user-adapted entry forms. Further, it facilitates the dynamic integration of web services and external data resources.

The DWB is work in progress, aiming at developing a set of information models and application components that collaborate through agreed software interfaces. That is, each component of the Workbench applications uses services from other applications, but at the same time does not need to know about the internal design and implementation of them (encapsulation principle). The goal is increased reuse and collaboration across project and national borders.

Currently, three institutions with four editors are involved: the Bavarian Natural History Collections with the SNSB IT Center, the University of Bayreuth, DNA-Analytics and Ecoinformatics and Applied Computer Science IV and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin – the MfN since 2013 in replacement of the Julius Kühn-Institut Berlin.

Diversity Workbench – Software tools for building and accessing biodiversity information

For each component of the Diversity Workbench (DWB) we aim at providing a comprehensive documentation of the application and the information model online. The framework for these components is currently still under development as we continue to learn about the necessary components and the best approach to the modularization of biodiversity information. A draft paper distributed by G. Hagedorn in 2002 provided insight into the framework concept.

History and projects: In an initial phase during the BMBF programme BIOLOG-IT with the GLOPP project (2000 until 2003) a set of prototypes was developed in Microsoft Access. The prototype applications are still available. With the exception of DeltaAccess/DiversityDescriptions they are by now largely obsolete.

Between 2003 and 2008 further applications were set up as part of the GBIF-D Mycology project using .Net technology and JAVA. Since 2006 the software development is continued as one of the general tasks of the SNSB IT Center. Starting with 2009 some advanced IT concepts and technical developments became part of the DiversityMobile/ IBF project, since 2010 certain GBIF relevant DWB-tools are optimized within the joint research project GBIF-D, Kompetenzzentren innovativer Datenmobilisierung. DWB applications and services are used by the German Barcode of Life project, by two DFG funded research infrastructure projects, namely BiNHum and IDES.

Starting with autumn 2013, the Flora von Bayern initiative relies on DWB databases as software suite to realise a data pipeline for occurrence data from the past and now for the future. Two BFL projects are working closely together in their IT infrastructure. The GFBio project started with the end of 2013 and is going to extend the user services of the Diversity Workbench on demand of biological and environmental research communities and projects in Germany.

Financial support for timely and thematically restricted DWB projects is granted through the Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst (StMWFK), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, LIS infrastructure platform (DFG), through the Fifth and Seventh Framework Programme of the EU Commission (EU projects Species 2000 europa and 4D4Life), through the Bayerisches Landesamt für Umwelt, and through the World Wildlife Fund for Nature Deutschland. We thank Diversity Workbench Co-workers for continuously modelling and setting up Diversity Workbench software. A number of highly engaged Contributors from several institutions in Germany deliver ideas and concepts to extend the databases and clients. The features of the Diversity Workbench concept were analysed in 2011 and listed under Diversity Workbench Performance. The DWB tools are subject of national and international data collections on Working Tools for Biodiversity Informatics and Virtual Research Environments.

The Diversity Workbench is appropriate to serve as database backbone and data management system for bio- and geodiversity research projects and is therefore listed as Research Infrastructure in the DFG RIsources Portal. The SNSB IT Center offers user help desk and services in this context.

Diversity Workbench Software is available under GPLv2 license.

Flyer and Poster

Diversity Workbench Flyer und Poster 2012

• Flyer PDF Download
• Poster PDF Download

Diversity Workbench Poster 2013

• Poster DWB – GBIF 2013 PDF Download

Diversity Workbench Flyer 2014

• Flyer PDF Download

DiversityMobile Flyer 2014

• Flyer PDF Download

Diversity Workbench job announcements

• at the SNSB IT Center

Diversity Workbench related workshops

• at the SNSB IT Center

Diversity Workbench information models

• Information models

Diversity Workbench software

• Software

See also Related Sites.

We gratefully acknowledge the help of our partner Altova in providing us with the xml-spy software!

The DiversityWorkbench pages were first published 2000-11-15, moved from static html to a JSP-Wiki 2006-02-07 and ported to the current MediaWiki 2008-09-05.