Wikidata:WikiProject Wikidata for research/GIF proposal

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About GIF

"The German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF) supports cooperative research projects conducted jointly by German and Israeli scientists. Projects must involve active collaboration between Israeli and German scientists, such as interdependent research conducted in different laboratories, sharing of research facilities, materials, equipment and/or services, exchange of scientific and technological knowledge and/or exchange of research personnel... In 2015, the GIF Regular Program is open for submission in the following areas: Exact Sciences: Physics, Chemistry, Material Sciences, Technology (Engineering), Mathematics, Computer Sciences, Geo-Earth and Environmental Sciences. Humanities: History, Archaeology, Literature, Philosophy and related fields."

The proposal should be designed for a duration of 3 years with a total budget of up to EUR 200,000.

Important dates:

• 1/8 - submission open.
• 31/10 - submission closed.

Abstract

Application Leader:
Application title:
Program:
Research area: Computer Sciences
Research sub-area: Information and Knowledge Management
Research area description:
Key words:

Project Detailed Description (10 pages)

Objectives and merits of the proposed research

We are proposing research how best to enable collaboration between professional and amateur scientist with respect to merge processes both technically AND with respect to the sociology of science.

As a result of our research we want to be able to answer:

• Can the knowledge management between professional science and amateur science be synergistically shared?
• Can it be moved towards a common knowledge base without disengaging either side? Which are teh prerequisites for this?
• Alternatively, if a shared base is not possible: Can we improve data merging, mirroring updates on one side to the respective other side?
• Which technologies and rules can effectively create an agile merge process between knwoldgebase updates occurring

QUESTIONS for preparation of proposal:

• Research papers about merge processes in information / knowledge management? Where both sides change? git for programming is good example, but not already the solution!
• Who has worked on the different sociology of building knowledge bases in Wikipedia/wikidata versus professional science? There is significant "Wikipedia Research".

Detailed description of the joint research (including methods and plan of operation)

Situation: With respect to the citizen science and professional science communities we typically have forked knowledgebases (or could easily fork them). But we have no merge processes.

In our research we use biological taxonomy as a study case. The proponents represent the Fauna Europeae Database, hosted at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany, and the citizen science community Wikipedia/Wikidata. Both are strongly active in developing and curating datasets about biological taxonomy.

The approach can focus an different aspects of the Fauna Europaea database. One is its taxonomy, it serves as a European standard reference for the taxonomy of all living multicellular European land and fresh-water animals. There is a expert community which is hierachical organized - associated experts,taxonomic specialists and group coordinators. As currently a proper annotation tool is lacking, annotation features on the wikidata side might help to define / enhance the workflows. The experts need specific work spaces to edit, discuss taxonimic concepts. Linked to the taxonomy is the distribution data of species.

The approach should also include ways and strategies how to enhance the exisiting data as this is particularly a "moving target" due to the constant change of the ecological conditions, habitats and global change processes.

Validation concepts have to be developed for the wiki-based data.This will be an essential feature, to have (1) the wiki pages for showing the actual state and discussions on the taxonomy and (2) the validated, citable and expert-driven FaEu database.

Leverage the citizen science community. Actively engaging the (citizen) science community by providing an straightforward way of participating in the development of Fauna Europaea.

• Geographic component: Add specific content with regards to species. Adding further presence / absence data for the different species. Including refined approaches with point occurence data.

• Enlarging FaEu: Including the Pan-European perspective.

• Literature: Update and supplement the existing literature of FaEu.

• Synonyms: Offer the opportunity to add more synonyms.

• Creating a vernacular names database - actively engaging citizen scientists in adding common and local names of species

• Adding additional feature data: Engaging the CS and expert community to contribute additional features and information on traits.

Generally linking FaEu data with other relevant Wikidata projects that might contribute further data enhancing the quality and quantity of the database and data mining iniiatives.

Furthermore: Actively providing opportunities for creating new (thematic) contents of the FaEu database - approaching small specialist networks and databases to integrate their knowledge in the wikidata approach.

Possible Scenarios: 2 DB remain and are intelligently connected so updates go both ways, while being filtered to shield prof. scientist from irrelevant updates.

One Problem: Original research versus fully citable: Professional scientist do original research, i.e. enter data from their own expertise. This needs special treatment when combined with wikidata. FaunaEuropaea has for example been used as a working platform to THEN publish sciencitific data papers (after several years). But the data need to be visible before this

Action in proposal: need to analyse workflows and asummptions or precondiitons, rules of action of the two communities

Qualifications of the investigators and the facilities at their disposal

Museum für Naturkunde (MfN), Germany

The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN) – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science is a research museum within the Leibniz Association and constituted as a foundation under public law. It is one of the most significant research museums worldwide focusing on biodiversity, evolution and geo-sciences with over 250 staff members. Research at the Museum für Naturkunde is organized in four Science Programs: Evolution and Geoprocesses, Collection Development and Biodiversity Discovery, Digital World and Information Science, and Public Engagement with Science. The collections of the MfN are directly linked to research and comprise more than 30 million specimens relating to zoology, palaeontology, geology and mineralogy. In addition, the MfN houses a unique Animal Sound Archive containing approximately 120,000 animal sound recordings. The library of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is one of the most important reference libraries in zoology in the German-speaking world.

Profile of the personnel

Dr. Gregor Hagedorn (m) is the head of the research division “Digital World and Information Science” at the MfN. He has extensive experience in developing data standards (three Biodiversity Information Standards/TDWG.org standards), descriptive and trait data, computer aided identification and citizen involvement (German Open Nature Guides, Artenquiz). Current projects are “German Federation for the Curation of Biological Data” (GFBio), pro-iBiosphere (EU Project) and Europeana Creative. He is a member of the CETAF and GBIF-Germany IT-commissions.

Relevant previous projects or activities

1. EU BON (FP7), Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network1
2. Open-Up (EU ICT-PSP), Opening up the Natural History Heritage for Europeana2
3. GBIF D, Global Biodiversity Information Facility – Germany3
4. EU FP7 4D4Life, Distributed Dynamic Diversity Databases for Life4
5. ECSA - European Citizen Science Association5

The Center for Internet Research, Israel

The Center for Internet Research in Haifa University is an interdisciplinary forum of researchers and advanced graduate scholars from various disciplines (computer science, history, communications, business, law, psychology, sociology, etc.), who meet to discuss various aspects of the information society, the technology that makes it happen, and the interactions between society, information and technology. The Center holds research activities and conferences regarding the information society, the technology that enables it and the interactions between them.

Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli is the founder and head of the Center for Internet Research. He holds a PhD from Stanford University, is a visiting professor at a number of universities, a researcher and lecturer, writes a weekly column for the financial press, and is former head of the Graduate School of Management in the University of Haifa, founding Editor of Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication and a board member for several associations in the field.

more

Bibliography

• Mark J. Costello, Robert M. May, and Nigel E. Stork, Can We Name Earth's Species Before They Go Extinct?, Science 25 January 2013: 339 (6118), 413-416. [DOI:10.1126/science.1230318]
• Carvalho, Marcelo R., et al. Does counting species count as taxonomy? On misrepresenting systematics, yet again. Cladistics 30.3 (2014): 322-329.

See also

• GIF - Call for Proposals- Fall 2015
• GIF Regular Program
• The Center for Internet Research in Haifa University
• Fauna Europaea