digital specimen feature request

[myrmoteras]

Goal: Create a digital specimen data type at Zenodo

An organism can multiple physical parts (e.g. larva, pupa, adult) and multiple digital representations, such as gene sequences, microCT, digital images.

A digital specimen could play an important function as the container that includes all the links to the various representations and identifiers of the physical specimens.

Example The Fabricius collection is the first dedicated reference insect collection for a series of volumes describing them. It is housed at the Natural History Museum Aachen. The reasearch team is currently digitizing each of the type specimen. This includes a series of images in standard views, some including a series of images that are stacked to produce one image with a deep field of depth. It also includes an image of the type on the pin as well as an image of the original label(s).

A digital specimen would allow to use a doi issued for the digital specimen also for the physical specimen. The digital specimen would include a minimal data (eg as defined in https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3465285 ) as well as the links to all the other images for the same specimen for which a doi is issues for each image.

Feature description A digital specimen is a DataCite subtype of ... including the follwing required fields and additional custom metadata developped for the taxonomic treatment

Pros and cons

• Pros ** Example for fostering the discussion

• Cons ** number of dois to be issues mulitplied by the number of digital objects per specimens. Since there are billions, this might become an issue of scaling

@mguidoti to add

[myrmoteras]

@slint @mguidoti here some discussion on digital specimen to be developed in DiSSCo