The Species Profile Model from an Avian Perspective.
Jeff Gerbracht, Steve Kelling
Abstract
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has several projects that provide life histories of birds via the web. For example, the Birds of North America Online (BNA) (http://bna.birds.cornell.edu) provides the most comprehensive, up-to-date educational resource concerning the life histories of all birds that live and breed in North America. Each of the 750 species accounts includes detailed information on all aspects of the birds’ life history, images that describe many of the plumage and behavioral characteristics, many vocalizations, and often video. The full contents of the BNA are available through subscription and are now linked to more than 10 million individual IP addresses.
The content of the BNA is maintained using three hierarchical levels of detail. For example, in each account the highest level (identified as an article) distinguishes categories such as breeding, systematics, and migration. The second level provides more specific information for each of the articles (e.g. for breeding this includes information on phenology, nesting, eggs). The most detailed level provides further specifics (i.e. for breeding phenology this includes information on topics such as pair formation and nest-building). This level of detail provides sufficient information to categorize all aspects of the life histories of birds.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a great interest in providing portions of the BNA content for repurposing by other applications. For example, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology provides access to partial BNA accounts to the All About Birds project. Additionally, other organizations, such as the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) initiative, have requested access to certain aspects of the BNA for inclusion within their datasets. One method of providing this access would be via the Species Profile Model (SPM), which is designed to enable an entity to express information about a taxon to a range of different client applications. SPM does not express categories of information in the detail currently used to organize a BNA life history account. Instead SPM info item classes can be viewed as analogous to the highest level of BNA categories.
To best map BNA content into SPM requires an accurate linking of the content at various levels of BNA to the appropriate SPM info item classes. When we attempt to map BNA content to the SPM we find that few categories can be mapped directly and in many cases, the detailed content of a BNA section such as Breeding - Phenology would be mapped to several different sections of the SPM. For this to be efficiently accomplished via automation, a many to one mapping of BNA content to the SPM would need to be created and maintained within the BNA system. Once this mapping is in place, the current BNA life histories as well as any revisions or new species accounts would be available to SPM consumers such as EOL.
The content of the BNA is maintained using three hierarchical levels of detail. For example, in each account the highest level (identified as an article) distinguishes categories such as breeding, systematics, and migration. The second level provides more specific information for each of the articles (e.g. for breeding this includes information on phenology, nesting, eggs). The most detailed level provides further specifics (i.e. for breeding phenology this includes information on topics such as pair formation and nest-building). This level of detail provides sufficient information to categorize all aspects of the life histories of birds.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a great interest in providing portions of the BNA content for repurposing by other applications. For example, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology provides access to partial BNA accounts to the All About Birds project. Additionally, other organizations, such as the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) initiative, have requested access to certain aspects of the BNA for inclusion within their datasets. One method of providing this access would be via the Species Profile Model (SPM), which is designed to enable an entity to express information about a taxon to a range of different client applications. SPM does not express categories of information in the detail currently used to organize a BNA life history account. Instead SPM info item classes can be viewed as analogous to the highest level of BNA categories.
To best map BNA content into SPM requires an accurate linking of the content at various levels of BNA to the appropriate SPM info item classes. When we attempt to map BNA content to the SPM we find that few categories can be mapped directly and in many cases, the detailed content of a BNA section such as Breeding - Phenology would be mapped to several different sections of the SPM. For this to be efficiently accomplished via automation, a many to one mapping of BNA content to the SPM would need to be created and maintained within the BNA system. Once this mapping is in place, the current BNA life histories as well as any revisions or new species accounts would be available to SPM consumers such as EOL.