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Franck Theeten1, Patricia Mergen1, Olivier Bakasanda2, Jörg Holetschek3, Patricia
Kelbert3, Motonobu Kasajima2, Garin Cael1, Charles Kahindo4
Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium; 2 Centre de Documentation de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche de
Kinshasa (CEDESURK), Kinshasa, DR Congo; 3 Botanischer Garten und Botanischer Museum (BGBM), Berlin; 4 Université Officielle de
Bukavu (OUB), Bukavu, RD Congo
1 Royal
Since 2008, the Royal Museum of Central Africa is carrying out the CABIN (Central African Biodiversity Information
Network) with the support of the Belgian Directorate General for Development Cooperation. It is aimed at easing access
to biodiversity data published on the Internet for researchers from Central Africa, as well as the publication of data from
local datasets to biodiversity networks such as GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility).
In March 2009, a first mission has been carried out at the CEDESURK (an academic library, resource centre and
provider of IT services for the main Congolese academic institutions) where the first part of a technical infrastructure
for accessing and publishing data has been implemented. In order to facilitate the maintenance of this infrastructure as
well as the integration of local biologists and IT scientists into existing scientific networks and communities, tools and
software developed within the framework of existing projects and well-known standards such as ABCD (Access to
Biological Collection Data) and DarwinCore have been used.
Data portal
Data publisher
Examples of Butterfly
collection (Albertine Rift
area) submitted to GBIF by
the means of a
BIOCASE/PyWrapper
provider installed at the
RMCA (case study for
CABIN)
Copyright: Ugo Dall’Asta,
Jacqueline Havugimana,
Anne Franklin
http://cabin.ebale.cd
To improve the access of researchers from Central Africa to biodiversity
data, a portal based on the BIOCASE portal (Biological Collection
Access Service for Europe) has been installed at the CEDESURK
facilities. It integrates the infrastructure of the Eb@lé project which
reinforces the Internet backbone of academic institutions from Congo
DR.
The basic structure of the application and source database have been
retained while the query interface has been customized by the
adaptation of multilingual presentation templates.
The production of the source database (a subset of African data coming
from GBIF) and the installation of the portal have been made with
support from the BGBM which also developed the original application. A
good collaboration between research institutions having complementary
expertise and geographical coverage allowed the reuse of an existing
application with a minimal amount of technical adjustments.
Language
Functionnality
Status
A BioCASe Provider Software has been also installed at the CEDESURK
in order to publish data. Its integrated QueryTool is being used as an
interface for the local scientists, again after having customized the
original presentation templates in order to better visualize multimedia
content.
CABIN also plans to extend this infrastructure with other data providers
(such as the GBIF IPT) in the coming years of the project.
In 2010, CABIN will issue a call in order to identify the local researchers
who could be interested in publishing their data on the Internet through
this platform. The project will also provide support and training to
enable maintenance of the infrastructure by local institutions. These
training sessions will introduce IT scientists working in regional
research and academic institutions to the development and integration
of web services able to provide and consume scientific metadata in XML
and/or RDF format. Finally they also aim to create a context where
biologists and IT scientists could meet and facilitate the development of
multidisciplinary scientific teams.
Language
Presentation
XML (Kid
templating)
-Layout
-Internationalization
-Customized for CABIN
Presentation
XSL-T
Logic tier
Python/Ajax/
XML-RPC
Application server
Database
MySQL
Database
Support
-Query engine to the central -Configuration files
database
modified (gathered in a
central folder)
-Distribution of the queries
to decentralized
ABCD/DarwinCore
providers in order to get
additional information
Logic tier
-Container for the basic
specimen information
-Registry of the access
points coordinates of the
linked ABCD/DarwinCore
providers
Database
-Structure of the original
portal database kept. Content updated for
CABIN (’Slices’ from the
central GBIF database
with focus on African )
XSL-T
(‘XML Stylesheet
Language –
Transformation’)
Functionnality
-Layout of the internal query
tool (integration of multimedia
content and link to high
resolution images).
Python
-Mapping of the source
database to eschange
standards (ABCD,
DarwinCore, Taxon Concpet
Schema, etc…)
-Set up of an access point for
GBIF indexation
Several data
providers
available
-Contains the basic specimen
information
Application server
Database
CABIN partner institutions and projects
Contact infos:
[email protected]