Diversifying the GBIF data model

Darwin Core—the most commonly used data standard in the GBIF community—has provided a simple and effective framework for supporting the growth of species occurrence data available from the GBIF network. But the simplicity of this standard, established and maintained by Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), has significant limitations when it comes to shaping data from diverse sources.

At both the Global Nodes Meeting and the 28th meeting of the GBIF Governing Board in 2021, GBIF head of informatics Tim Robertson and long-time collaborator John Wieczorek detailed initial case studies highlighting these limitations while outlining possible approaches for supporting richer, more complex types of biodiversity data.

In this community webinar, John and Tim offer an update on their case studies and present current ideas for a unified common model capable of supporting expanded data-publishing capabilities, as well as potential directions for evolving the Darwin Core standard.

The webinar started with a screening of a 15-minute presentation on the emerging data model, followed by an open question-and-answer session.

This webinar will interest numerous communities and networks comprising biodiversity data publishers, users and stakeholders, and serves to start an ongoing discussion about extending Darwin Core's capabilities while supporting existing activities and models.