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Title Transdisciplinary Approaches in Documentation of Biodiversity

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Author(s) Lampe, K.H.

Presenting author Lampe, K.H.

Institution(s) University of Bonn, Systematic Zoology, c/o Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Adenauer Allee 160, 53113 Bonn, Germany

Keywords Transdisciplinarity, Biodiversity Informatics, Documentation

Abstract Introduction: The traditional 'analogous' practice of documentation in Natural History museums is mainly based on more or less atomized entities which are often simple field names such as locality, collector or author. With modern approaches the documentation becomes more focused on processes and events. Thus the above mentioned entities what, who, where and when or respectively object/concept, person, place, time and activity have to be related to each other.

Methods: Information is modelled here with an ontology based on the CIDOC-Conceptual Reference Model (ISO 21127). In informatics, ontology is a formal specification of semantic concepts.

Results: As to be specified with some realistic examples taken from the field of biodiversity (collecting-, determination-, type creation-, expedition-, observation and painting events) the formal specification of semantic concepts makes scientific activities commonly understandable. In scientific (as well as scholarly) disciplines that should be an efficient way to document information in their full scientific depth rather than simply administering it. Thereby information content and handling can be improved by multiple instantiation, mutual verification and semantic enrichment.

Conclusions: A documentation of processes and events seems to be a prerequisite for transdisciplinary information integration which is needed for developing knowledge networks and knowledge representation tools on the internet.

Congress Topic Capacity development

Topic No. 5.10
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Ref. No. 632