14-May-2007 05:30 Age: 1 yrs
Digital Stories for TAPIR and LSID
Using multimedia and the web to connect with our key stakeholders!
Join us here to develop content for these stories
TDWG needs to communicate its work effectively to its key stakeholders within natural history organizations. These organizations are TDWG's main clientele.
Digital stories are breaking new ground in effectively communicating complex concepts. With these videos we plan to explain the key reasons for the standards and how they deliver these requirements.
They will be available on the TDWG web site, used in conference presentations and for teaching about interoperability standards (in Biodiversity Informatics courses). They will also be used to promote TDWG to those that use its standards. These videos will be complementary to various Primers on standards we are encouraging, but of necessity, not requiring specialist technical knowledge.
The aim of this Blog is to facilitate the development of content for the videos.
Comments
Displaying results 1 to 5 out of 15
| Paul Flemons from Australian Museum | |
| Monday, 14-05-07 09:00 ok so here is the first comment for the digital stories blog. There has been some discussion already preceeding the setting up of this blog subject. At this stage I just want to get peoples ideas on what they like and dont like about the digital stories (or videos) they have seen so far and to throw up ways of presenting TAPIR and LSID to an audience that Lee has established as being aimed at "the level of managers within natural history organizations". We will then apply the process we use for developing digital stories here at the Museum to those ideas and come up with various drafts for comment before finalising the product. |
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| Paul Flemons from Australian Museum | |
| Monday, 14-05-07 09:30 I have been putting some thought into the stories and have had one very useful meeting with Lynda and Mel from the team here at the Australian Museum, more to follow. As a result I have some ideas to put forward for discussion, I will number them to enable easy reference as the discussion proceeds. 1. In developing the story I came up with three main approaches to telling the story of TAPIR and LSIDs':- a) data focused descriptive approach - where we simply describe what they are and what they do, using specimens, databases and maps as the main visual themes b) problem focused - where we identify problems that biodiversity data is crucial to the solution of and then show how TAPIR and LSID contribute. This would involve images of environmental problems, climate change maybe??, species extinctions etc c)a combination of the above with visual themes combining both problems needing solutions and the specimens and maps. I think "a)" is easier to build a story for and is possibly more relevant for our target audience. The "b)" option may be better for a broader audience. The "c)" option may be trying to pack too much in. Thoughts? 2. One video or two? Lee initially asked for two videos, one for TAPIR and one for LSID. I thought we could possibly combine them into one video. My intial thoughts were to begin with TAPIR and how it opens up a world of data or "unleashes it" as suggested by Renato. We could use Renatos idea of draws of specimens opening and combine that with maps of locations of collections. Then as the story progresses we drill down into a single location and see its LSID before then radiating out to other related specimen records all accessed through the LSIDs. I will go into more detail after I meet with Lynda and Mel tomorrow. The down side of one video is whether we can get the message across for both of these in 3 or 4 minutes of video. My suggestion at this stage is to suck it and see whether we can do one video rather than two. I just think TAPIR and LSID are so interlinked in design and concept that we can communicate them together better than if we separate them out. Thoughts please! My brain hurts - time to go |
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| Lee Belbin from Blatant Fabrications Pty Ltd | |
| Tuesday, 15-05-07 06:04 I think we should aim for approach A as this seems like an easier place to start. There is nothing stopping us from identifying an example of a problem that TAPIR and LSIDs solve. We want to avoid the (dangerous) approach of a solution looking for a problem. I really want two videos. Reason's being a) We will want to use them separately, b) We will hopefully have at least one for each major TDWG activity/group/standard and we may want to mix and match for different circumstances and c) I can't see justice being done to anything in less than ~3-4 minutes. I would be keen to do a video on Donald's Universal Biodiversity Data Bus. This would include mention of LSIDs (or at least identifiers), TAPIR, ontologies. This corresponds to the TDWG common development architecture. But, I figure we need a few successes on simpler videos before we would tackle this one. LSIDs and TAPIR are a priority. |
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| Mel Broe from Australian Museum | |
| Tuesday, 15-05-07 07:09 Discussion with Paul and Lynda to further clarify audience, format, and how TAPIR works. We thought it would be good to have a video that explained both TAPIR and LSIDs together, as their function is so interlinked. I see Renato's reasoning, but it would be hard to explain the one without the other. I guess you could have two videos, each with a different primary focus, but each addressing the way the two subjects work together. Paul's sketch of how TAPIR brings together disparate organisations and their databases is a good visual reference - is it possible to post pdfs or other image files to this blog? IF it is I will post the sketch. Further clarification on audience: 'key stakeholders within natural history organisations' can include biodiversity professionals such as those in science, conservation and planning, collection managers, data managers, and specifically people from these areas involved with flora and fauna, also students in the biodiversity area. So they are not strictly a lay audience, but people already involved and with a stake in the area. The video could link use of data to management of data, to show how TAPIR and LSIDs are important to both scientists and researchers, and also to anyone who needs to access the data for a broader picture of biodiversity issues. To try and explain in words what is better illustrated by a simple sketch: individual organisations such as the australian museum, and other natural history museums, have their data stored in databases under their own systems. LSIDs are applied at this local level to each specimen/object. TAPIR acts as a wrapper (or translating mechanism)around each and every museum's database. An organisation such as GBIF queries the data with whatever query language they normally use. The TAPIR software, in conjunction with the TAPIR wrapper, translate this query into the terms or fields that each individual database uses to store their data, and match this with TAPIRs fields. Each individual database may have different labels for the same type of information, it is up TAPIR to filter this and return the appropriate data back to the querying body, to be stored in the appropriate fields in a cache. A smaller body such as Biomaps can then access that cached data, which, via the LSIDs, retains its unique identification, meaning that each bit of data can still be traced back to its original source. At the same time, all the different relevant pieces of information are compiled together for the user. Paul, is this about right? please comment. We did not have time to discuss practical ideas of content design and production, however the visual structure of 'the machine is us/ing us' is still a possibility, Paul suggested playing on the word TAPIR and the results you get from a search engine. I think the style of the Encyclopedia of Life is very similar but less successful, perhaps because the choice of music is so good for 'the machine is us/ing us'. I still like the idea of drawers of specimens, perhaps using a practical example of a researcher utilising TAPIR and LSIDs to explore a particular specimen. I feel that the next stage neeeds to be about specific visual themes, script ideas, and concepts that need to be conveyed by the video. In the interim i am going to analyise a bit further the structure of the two videos talked about and see what is successful about them, and I would also like to have another look at the australian museum's digital stories so far, and see what techniques and ideas could be useful from these already completed projects. For this I would like to know how to upload image, maybe audio, and video files and pdfs if possible! I also thin it might be worth looking at blogs in related areas, and inviting participation from others. What do people think? Mel |
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| Mel Broe from Australian Museum | |
| Tuesday, 15-05-07 07:23 Hi Renato is it possible to get a comment feed from this blog, so I can monitor the comments? Are you the person to ask about this? |
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