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MIDS Tools
| Description: | The MIDSCalculator is a Shiny app written in R, which allows users to calculate MIDS scores for each record in a submitted dataset, and explore the results. It supports data presented as Simple Darwin Core, Darwin Core Archives and ABCD Biocase archives (though processing of the latter is quite slow). The app is unfortunately not web-available, so it needs to be run on your local machine. This can be done using an R IDE like RStudio, but a Windows installer built with the Inno Setup framework is also periodically released. |
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| Landing Page: | None |
| Download URL: | https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ioRhHIvdYI88yoPTsYLG_k5-8n-05CiP |
| Documentation: | https://github.com/AgentschapPlantentuinMeise/MIDSCalculator/blob/main/help/howtouse.md |
| GitHub Repository: | https://github.com/AgentschapPlantentuinMeise/MIDSCalculator |
| Last Updated: | 2025-05-07 |
| Description: | The MIDS Checker is a web-based tool for calculating MIDS scores on biological datasets uploaded to GBIF. The goal of this tool is to make it easy for anyone to check the current MIDS level of their GBIF dataset without having to download the data themselves or run specialist software on their computer. It uses the GBIF predicate API to quickly calculate MIDS level scores at the dataset level and includes a built-in search function to easily find any dataset on GBIF. It has some limitations with regards to the fields supported by the GBIF API: Not all fields present in GBIF datasets and mapped for MIDS can be accessed this way, so results may not always be fully representative. |
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| Landing Page: | https://naturalhistorymuseum.github.io/gamc/ |
| Documentation: | https://naturalhistorymuseum.github.io/gamc/about |
| GitHub Repository: | https://github.com/NaturalHistoryMuseum/gamc |
| Last Updated: | 2024-07-22 |
| Description: | The Distributed System of Scientific Collections is an emerging European Research Infrastructure aimed at accelerating the digitisation of Natural History Collections. For each specimen, DiSSCo ingests it calculates the MIDS level of the specimen and adds it to the data. The calculation is based on the SSSOM mapping provided by the MIDS Work Group but DiSSCo does (not yet) use the SSSOM directly. |
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| Landing Page: | https://disscover.dissco.eu/ |
| GitHub Repository: | https://github.com/DiSSCo |
| Last Updated: | 2025-05-27 |
MIDS Glossary
Bare Record
The association between an identifier of a physical specimen and its initial digital representation, allowing for subsequent unambiguous attachment of all other information (cf. basic record, regular record and extended record).
Basic Record
A limited set of information about the specimen; for example, physical specimen identifier and barcode details, and details of the collection it belongs to (cf. bare record, regular record and extended record).
Collection
Within the context of MIDS, a collection is an accumulated group of objects with a focal characteristic that is assembled and maintained by an individual or organization over time. A collection comprises multiple items that are conceptually or physically arranged together for a specific purpose and audience, according to a collection plan.
Sources: Lightweight Information Describing Objects (LIDO) http://terminology.lido-schema.org/lido01053
(Content) Data
Data relating directly to describing physical specimens, such as images of those specimens, information from specimen labels (scientific name, location where collected, date collected, collector name, etc.), links to third-party semantic resources, or measurements and other analyses of specimens.
Digital Specimen
A digital representation on the Internet (digital twin) corresponding to a physical specimen in a natural science collection.
Digitisation
The process of converting analog information about physical specimens (e.g. in natural science collections) to digital form, which therefore includes electronic text, images and other representations; and making that publicly available.
Extended Record
A comprehensive set of elements describing the specimen; for example: all label data, annotations and identification history (cf. bare record, basic record and regular record).
Information Element
A designation for a specific piece of information about the specimen which has a definition and is mapped to relevant schemas to determine whether a dataset satisfies each information element within each MIDS level.
Informative
Providing background or additional information.
Intermediate Record
An intermediary level of information including data that have been agreed over time as essential for most scientific purposes.
Levels of Digitisation
A simple categorisation of the type and depth of digitisation achieved by different approaches to digitisation.
Natural Science Collection
A collection comprised of objects that occur naturally (in contrast to an anthropogenic origin), such as preserved plants and animals, fossils, rocks and minerals, gems, etc. curated and maintained by an institution such as a museum or a university.
Normative
Those aspects of a standard that shall be implemented in order for a particular system to be compliant to the standard.
Sources: ISO/IEC 14496-3:2019(en)
Persistent identifier (PID)
A string (functioning as a symbol) that acts as a (globally) unique and long-lasting reference to a thing. The identifier can be persistently resolved to digitally actionable meaningful information about the identified thing.