The Data Quality Interest Group was proposed in 2013 and formally adopted by the TDWG Executive in 2014. A Symposium and Workshop was held at TDWG2014 in Jönköping, Sweden. The Interest Group was combined with the GBIF discussion group on Data Quality to form the TDWG-GBIF Data Quality Interest Group. Approximately 100 members expressed an interest in working with the Interest Group since its early stages.
Three Task Groups were established after the Jönköping meeting – viz.
- Task Group 1: A Framework on Data Quality
- Task Group 2: Tools, Services and Workflows
- Task Group 3: Use Case Library
The three Task Groups have made significant progress to date and this will be reported to the workshop. Task Group 1 has submitted a paper to PLOS ONE, which we hope will be published prior to the workshop; Task Group 2 has concentrated on coordinating the many data quality tests being used by data managers around the world, and linking these to individual Darwin Core fields and have prepared a spreadsheet setting out those tests along with the assertions arising from them; and Task Group 3 has prepared an entry form and corresponding spreadsheet for documenting Use Cases.
The Interest Group, along with two of GBIF’s Working Groups on Fitness for Use met in March 2016 in São Paulo, Brazil and formally worked through the Framework, Tests and Assertions and Use Cases and discussed how these may be applied to Species Distribution Modeling and Agrobiodiversity. A second meeting is being held in Melbourne, Australia in October to discuss some of the next steps and to liaise with the GBIF Fitness for Use Working Group on Alien Invasive Species.
The Workshop at TDWG2016 will review the work accomplished to date and discuss the next steps, focusing on how the work of the Interest Group – the framework, tests and assertions, and use cases – may be disseminated and how we can encourage the universal adoption of these by data custodians, data publishers and users. The participation of the current members and other interested parties on this Workshop is very important to obtain a broad representation of the biodiversity informatics community.
This represents the second session for this Interest Group and will bring in related task and interest groups.
