Missouri Botanical Garden Open Conference Systems, TDWG 2013 ANNUAL CONFERENCE

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The BiSciCol Triplifier: bringing legacy biodiversity data to the Semantic Web
Brian Stucky, Robert Guralnick, John Deck, Tom Conlin

Building: Grand Hotel Mediterraneo
Room: Sala dei Continenti
Date: 2013-10-30 02:59 PM – 03:08 PM
Last modified: 2013-10-07

Abstract


The biodiversity informatics community is increasingly interested in the Semantic Web and Resource Description Framework (RDF) as a new approach to storing and delivering biodiversity data. However, Semantic Web technologies are substantially different from the relational, table-based data formats that have been widely used for these data in the past. Consequently, there is a large body of legacy biodiversity data that is inaccessible via the Semantic Web, and converting these data to RDF is a non-trivial and often daunting task for those unfamiliar with the details of RDF. As part of the Biological Science Collections Tracker (BiSciCol) project, we have been developing the "Triplifier," a tool that is intended to automate the process of converting biodiversity data in standard, table-based formats, such as Darwin Core Archives, into RDF. The Triplifier makes it relatively easy even for those without extensive working knowledge of RDF to render their data in a format suitable for sharing on the Semantic Web. As part of this process, the Triplifier also necessarily implements a method for representing the Darwin Core in a semantic context. In this talk, we will demonstrate the Triplifier, present its architecture and approach to representing biodiversity data in RDF, and discuss future development and uses planned for this tool.