BioNames was my entry in EOL's Computable Data Challenge (you can see the proposal here: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.92091). In that proposal I outlined my goal:
BioNames aims to create a biodiversity “dashboard” where at a glance we can see a summary of the taxonomic and phylogenetic information we have for a given taxon, and that information is seamlessly linked together in one place. It combines classifications from EOL with animal taxonomic names from ION, and bibliographic data from multiple sources including BHL, CrossRef, and Mendeley. The goal is to create a database where the user can drill down from a taxonomic name to see the original description, track the fate of that name through successive revisions, and see other related literature. Publications that are freely available will displayed in situ. If the taxon has been sequenced, the user can see one or more phylogenetic trees for those sequences, where each sequence is in turn linked to the publication that made those sequences available. For a biologist the site provides a quick answer to the basic question “what is this taxon?”, coupled with with graphical displays of the relevant bibliographic and genomic information.
The bulk of the funding from EOL is going into interface work by Ryan Schenk (@ryanschenk), author of synynyms among other cool things. EOL's Chief Scientist Cyndy Parr (@cydparr) is providing adult supervision ("Chief Scientist", why can't I have a title like that?).
Development of BioNames is taking place in the open as much as we can, so there are some places you can see things unfold:
- Key features and milestones are on Trello
- Design details are on GitHub
- Database is hosted by Cloudant
- There is a (currently private) design document in Google Docs. I've posted a snapshot on FigShare (http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.652203
I've lots of terrible code scattered around which I am in the process of organising into something usable, which I'll then post on GitHub. Working with Ryan is forcing me to be a lot more thoughtful about coding this project, which is a good thing. Currently I'm focussing on building an API that will support the kinds of things we want to do. I'm hoping to make this public shortly.
The original proposal was a tad ambitious (no, really). Most of what I hope to do exists in one form or another, but making it robust and usable is a whole other matter.
As the project takes shape I hope to post updates here. If you have any suggestions feel free to make them. The current target is to have this "out the door" by the end of May.
