A door to the digital transformation
DiSSCo’s Community Services
DiSSCo will create a unique access point for integrated data analysis and interpretation through a wide array of digital services provided by its community. The services aim to serve real life needs and therefore are based on the priorities set by collection providers and a robust base of user stories.
What are we trying to achieve?
- Support and improve both physical and digital access to European Natural Scientific Collections (NSCs)
- Enable and support industrial scale digitisation of the collections
- Provide enhanced interpretation, curation, annotation and use of specimen data by novel, machine-actionable mechanisms
DiSSCo’s services will bring about change
DiSSCo’s services will help NSCs providers become an integral part of the European and Global scientific community, making them better equipped for changing user needs and new scientific usage of collections.
For researchers, the services mean improved efficiency to become more responsive to urgent needs. DiSSCo’s services will also accelerate biodiversity discovery, improve visibility in their contributions and reduce the global carbon footprint derived from trips and shipments of specimens.
DiSSCo’s services will bring about change in the way technology, processes and people interact. They open the door for a true digital transformation of Natural Science Collections.
ELViS: one-stop shop for access to NSCs
European Loans and Visits System
Description
ELViS is a one-stop shop for access to the collections in Europe. It provides a unified way to request visits, loans and virtual access. Virtual access requests through ELViS provide digitisation on demand as a new type of access, including support for collaborating on VA ideas and proposal submission. The request mechanism implemented in ELViS also enables future services for tracking usage metrics, monitoring and reporting and connecting collection usage with research outputs.
Version information
Version 1 developed in the SYNTHESYS+ project. Released in March 2021 with support for Transnational Access (TA) and Virtual Access (VA, digitisation on demand) requests. Version 2 to be released in 2022 with support for Loans.
TRL status
7-8. Operational with a limited number of collection providers, in use for TA and VA through SYNTHESYS+ calls.
Hosted by Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Picturae
Other services
Services that include digitisation dashboards, tools for digital maturity self-assessment and mechanisms for policy compliance.
CDD: Visualizing collections across institutions
Collection Digitisation Dashboard
Description
The interactive dashboard visually summarises the digitisation status, content and strengths of collections across the community of institutions through a number of visual elements. It displays progress in digitisation and provides summaries and comparisons regarding the number of objects, taxonomic scope, categories of preservation, stratigraphic age, geospatial range, level of digitisation and digital content availability for reuse. The dashboards implement a novel specification for standardised collection descriptions to enable cross-institutional aggregation and comparison of data.
Version information
Prototype was developed in the SYNTHESYS+ project and released in 2020 with standardised collection information from a limited number of institutions. Further development is planned for 2021/2022 to automate the data import and allow for more institutions to join, to create a pipeline for data updates through the CETAF registry and to become compliant with the TDWG Collections Descriptions standard under development.
TRL status
6. Working prototype with a few collection providers.
Hosted by Natural History Museum, London
DiSSCover: Community annotation for science
DiSSCover (Unified Curation and Annotation System)
Description
DiSSCover (formerly UCAS) will provide event-based curation and annotation functions on the DS for experts in the community and for machines. Transactions on the data will be stored as well as provenance information related to the curation or annotation events.
Version information
Proof of concept available
TRL status
1. Basic principles are being discussed.
Hosted by DiSSCo
Click on the image to enlarge
Experimentation with FDOs
Digital Specimen Repository
Description
The DSR is a data repository for experimentation with Digital Specimen and other DiSSCo-related FAIR Digital Objects (FDOs).
Version information
Demonstrator, developed in the ICEDIG project to test the Digital Specimen concept. Will be further developed into a pilot to support development of the Open Digital Specimen specification.
TRL status
3. Experimental proof of concept.
Hosted by Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Senckenberg.
Support and Open Science-related services
Including DiSSCo’s Knowledge Base and Helpdesk.
DiSSCo’s commitment to Open Science
Knowledge Base
IMPORTANT UPDATE: DiSSCo’s Knowledge Base is temporarily out of service. While we work to bring it back online as soon as possible, you can follow this link to find a comprehensive list of deliverables from the DiSSCo Prepare project hosted at CORDIS.
Description
The Knowledge Base provides a central search and browse interface to find all documentation related to DiSSCo. These include research outputs created in DiSSCo linked projects (DiSSCo Prepare, ICEDIG, ENVRI-FAIR, MOBILISE and SYNTHESYS +) but also other contents: training materials, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), best practices, guidelines, recommendations, technical documentation and documented decisions. The Knowledge Base is implemented with DSpace, which includes a hierarchical structure for the documents, full text search, a REST API, custom metadata, versioned documents, DOIs. The service will be integrated with other DiSSCo services that require linkage to documentation such as the helpdesk. Schema.org metadata inclusion will ensure findability in search engines like Google
Version information
A beta version is available through know.dissco.eu.
TRL status
6. Prototype created in DSpace 6 as beta, a more complete implementation will follow in DSpace 7 which offers improved integration with e.g. ORCID iDs.
Hosted by Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin.
Information and support in one place
Helpdesk
Description
The DiSSCo Helpdesk will be a central place for all questions related to DiSSCo services or access programmes such as the virtual access and transnational access calls in ELViS. As such, it will be integrated with DiSSCo services. The Helpdesk’s first line support is done by CETAF secretariat while second line support goes to selected CETAF/DiSSCo institutions. Third line support goes to developers of services such as Picturae for ELViS. The Helpdesk is using JitBit software.
Version information
The system is used in production with ELViS since 2022.
TRL status
7. Helpdesk has been set up and tested.
Hosted by CETAF, the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities and Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden.
DiSSCo offers different technical knowledge platforms at the scientific community’s disposal:
Get the latest technical posts about the design of DiSSCo’s Infrastructure
A preview of experimental services and demonstrators by the DiSSCo community
Code hosting for DiSSCo software, version control and collaboration