Diversity Workbench

The Diversity Workbench (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 partners/ 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 Julius-Kühn Institut Berlin.

1 Diversity Workbench – Software tools for building and accessing biodiversity information
2 Diversity Workbench Flyer and Poster
3 Diversity Workbench job announcements
4 Diversity Workbench related workshops
5 Diversity Workbench information models
6 Diversity Workbench software
7 General information
8 Ongoing discussions

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.

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 will be optimized within the joint research project GBIF-D, Kompetenzzentren innovativer Datenmobilisierung.

Financial support for timely and thematically restricted DWB projects was 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), and through the Fifth and Seventh Framework Programme of the EU Commission (EU projects Species 2000 europa and 4D4Life). We thank Diversity Workbench Co-workers for continuously modelling and setting up Diversity Workbench software. The features of the Diversity Workbench concept were recently analysed and listed under Diversity Workbench Performance 2011. The DWB tools are subject of international data collections on Working Tools for Biodiversity Informatics and Virtual Research Environments.

Diversity Workbench Software is available under GPLv2 license.