15. How EOL works
Combine scientific credibility with public enthusiasm
Scientific community
• Assemble scientific information
• Authenticate information – CURATORS
16. How EOL works
Combine scientific credibility with public enthusiasm
Scientific community
• Assemble scientific information
• Authenticate information – CURATORS
Students, teachers, enthusiasts
• Submit photos, videos, other species information
• Submissions with scientific value are brought into authenticated pages
20. Content Sharing
>60 Content Partners with established data flow
Alaska Fisheries Science Ctr. EOL Rapid Response Pictures of Tropical Lichens
Alpheidae - Snapping Shrimp FieldScope Plazi.org
AmphibiaWeb Finding Species Public Health Image Library
AnAge FishBase
Radiolaria.org
Animal Diversity Web Flickr
Scott Namestnik
Antarctic Invertebrates Freshwater Turtles & Tortoises
GBIF Shorefishes Tropical Eastern Pacific
AntWeb
Hexacorallions of the World Smithsonian North American Mammals
Arctic Ocean Biodiversity
Hypogymnia Solanaceae Source
ARKive
Illinois Wildflowers Spiders
AskNature
Indiana Dunes Bioblitz
Barcode of Life Datasystems Tree of Life Web Project
Inotaxa
BioLib.cz Trilobites Online
IUCN
Biolib.de Tunicata
Leptogastrinae LifeDesk
Biology of Aging University of Alberta Museums
LepTree
BioPedia USDA NRCS PLANTS Database
Metalmark Moths of the World
Biopix WhyReef
Micro*scope
Braconidae Wikimedia Commons
Missouri Botanical Garden
Catalogue of Life Wikipedia
MorphBank Image Repository
Consortium for the Barcode of LIfe World Register of Marine Species
Mushroom Observer
Zookeys
Diatom LifeDesk Nemertea
21. Regional EOLs
Serve content in many languages
Collaborate with international Partners
22. Regional EOLs
Serve content in many languages
Collaborate with international Partners
Regional EOLs
Norway
Dutch
North America
Pan-Arab China
Central America
South Africa Australia
23. Regional
Serving regional
needs in regional
language
Basic tools
Shares pages
Relevant
Translations
data
Global
Other region
Serving international needs
Other region
All species
24. Open Access!
Attribution for authors/source collections
All content must be available for redistribution/reuse
• public domain
• creative commons licenses, except nd
25. Open Access!
Attribution for authors/source collections
All content must be available for redistribution/reuse
• public domain
• creative commons licenses, except nd
Building a global biodiversity commons of high quality
resources to support diverse projects in research,
education, conservation, policy making
26. EOL Content - Current Status
>2.4 million taxa
>1.7 million data objects
almost 400,000 taxon pages
> 300,000 pages with vetted data objects
almost 400 curators
>70,000 pages with unvetted data objects only
>900,000 pages with links to literature
As with all great projects, there are a number of different creation myths associated with the Encyclopedia of Life.....
One of the most popular ones is that a man had an idea...
... he made a wish ...
... and the money started flowing....
Of course, the real story is a bit more complicated than that. There were actually a lot of different people involved in the conception, gestation, and birth of EOL, and some day somebody is probably going to write a book about this.
What we do know for sure is that thanks to funding from the MacArthur & Sloan Foundations and the EOL cornerstone institutions, the project gained considerable momentum during 2007 ....
... and the first version of the web site launched in February 2008.
The site has since gone through several transformations and will continue to change to adapt to the needs of its audience and contributors.
So, the major goals of the EOL project are: to make all biodiversity information openly accessible, through a single portal, in a common format, and to provide some form of quality control for the materials featured in the collection.
EOL will always be growing, as researchers find out new things about described species and discover new ones.
We estimate that it will take about ten years to prepare the basic information on the currently known species and to set up a robust process whereby new species are incorporated as they are described.
So how does EOL get its content?
What we are trying to do is to combine scientific credibility with public enthusiasm.
So we are asking the scientific community to assemble the core information in our collection and to authenticate materials from diverse sources.
In addition, we are making it possible for the general public to submit photos, videos, and other species information, and from that pool we then identify valuable submissions and integrate them in our authoritative collection.
Pages are assembled with contributions from many content partners
Point out attribution
Pages are assembled with contributions from many content partners
Point out attribution
Content partners provide information to EOL in XML format
EOL periodically harvest data
Data from scientific projects pre-vetted
Content partners provide information to EOL in XML format
EOL periodically harvest data
Data from scientific projects pre-vetted
Although EOL is currently run almost entirely from within the US, the project aims to be international in scope. Eventually, we want to present content in as many different languages as possible, and we are trying to achieve this goal by working with organizations in many different countries.
We are also establishing so-called Regional EOLs in a number of different areas around the world. For the regions highlighted on this map regional EOL projects are already well underway, while others are still in the early planning stages.
Regional EOLs are EOL sister sites, that use the software and branding of EOL but provide their own funding and content development efforts. These projects will focus on the flora and fauna of their region while using materials from the global EOL project to provide context. Content will also be translated and shared between and among regional EOLs and the global EOL site.
I have mentioned the word open access several times, what does that mean?
I have mentioned the word open access several times, what does that mean?
We currently have many more taxa in our database than there are described species: duplication of taxa. We have over 1.7 million data objects on almost 400,000 taxon pages. Also, we have over 300,000 pages that feature at least one vetted data object, i.e., a text section or an image that has been evaluated by an expert. We also have over 70,000 pages where we have no information from scientific sources, but we have picked up information from unvetted sources such as Wikipedia and Flickr.
