Open Discussion on Associated Media Management in Specify 7

Give Development Feedback
, ,
1

Open Discussion on Associated Media Management in Specify 7

Meeting Recording

Chat: Open Discussion on Asset Management in Specify 7 Chat.txt (28.6 KB)

Transcript: Open Discussion on Asset Management in Specify 7 Transcript.vtt (69.2 KB)

Event Details

Time and Date

December 12 @ 2 pm US CST / 9 pm CET / December 13, 7 am AEDT

Description

This is a members only event. Thank you for all who participated!

Specimen management has been steadily growing from just managing the specimen itself to now managing all of the data associated with that specimen. From massive digitization efforts to extended specimen support, managing a specimen’s associated media, including both locally stored files and external links such as 3D scans in MorphoSource, sounds in eBird/Macaulay Library, DNA sequences in BOLD, and publication citations, effectively managing a specimen means managing its associated data as well.

We would like to invite interested members of the Specify community to share their insights, workflows, and requirements with us on how they use and would like to use their specimens’ associated media. Please join us Thursday, December 12 at 2 pm CST (Friday, December 13 at 7 am AEDT) to discuss associated media management in your collections.

Event Questions

  1. What types of digital assets (photos, documents, other media, or file types) do you attach or link to your collection specimens?

  2. Do you share/publish the digital assets associated with your specimen records?

  3. Any interest in linking Collection Object, Locality, or Taxon records to image/digital asset servers, DAMs, campus repositories, inside or outside of your institution?

  4. What do you perceive as the collection management or institutional benefits of linking digital assets to Specify records? (e.g. archival, publishing, research, marketing, external mandates, curatorial preferences)

  5. What digital assets would you like to be able to link to your specimen records in the future? See any likely emerging trends for linking new types of data objects?

  6. Do you have a need to link Specify cataloged Collection Objects to MorphSource or any other 3D image archive for images or “representational” data sets generated from scanning your specimens?

  7. What tables do you link assets to? Collection Object? Others? If there are assets linked to other tables, do you need to export those too with Collection Object exports?

  8. How do you determine if a Collection Object has an associated digital asset? Query? Go to individual records and see if there is something linked? Attachment Viewer?

  9. What metadata do you collect for digital assets? Standard profiles? Institutional or Discipline standards? Practical metadata needs for local use “in museum” linking?

  10. Do you have digital assets that would need to have restricted access? For your Specify users? For external publishing, e.g. to collaborative projects or community aggregators?

  11. If you could immediately see the active links on a single specimen data form to all local and remote digital assets related to that Collection Object in your Specify database (e.g. related to the specimen, locality, taxon, nomenclature, agents, GBIF, CoL, WoRMS, etc.), -- what curatorial or management activity would that enable?

1 Like
3

Major Takeaways from the “Open Discussion on Associated Media Management in Specify 7” Discussion

Discussion Points: Open Discussion on Asset Management in Specify 7 Discussion Points
Recording, Transcript, and Chat: Asset Management Discussion
Please send additional questions or suggestions to either support@specifysoftware.org or membership@specifysoftware.org.

Meeting Overview

The discussion held on December 12, 2024, at 2 PM CST, aimed to gather insights from the Specify member community regarding the management of digital assets associated with specimen records. Participants discussed their current practices, challenges, and future needs in asset management, particularly focusing on how local and external media files can be linked to specimen data.

Major Areas of Focus

Types of Digital Assets:

  • Participants shared the various digital assets they manage:
    • Heather Cole: “Collecting permits!”
    • Natalia Lopez Carranza: “Specimen images, locality cards, maps.”
    • Tamaki Yuri: “Audio files.”
    • Krista Fahy: “Necropsy reports, images, newspaper clippings.”
  • The consensus was that specimen images are often shared with aggregators, while other documents are typically kept internal due to privacy concerns. There are some exceptions to this rule.

Conclusion: Users are managing a wide range of assets in Specify. This covers everything from specimen images to field notes, collecting permits, loan documents, necropsy reports, locality cards, maps, audio files, PDFs of original descriptions, spreadsheets, 3D scans, DNA sequences, newspaper clippings, and many other media types.

External URLs as Attachments & Reciprocal Connections:

  • There is a strong desire to link collection objects to external digital asset management systems (DAMS) and repositories:
    • Warren Brown: “Reciprocal connections to any external repository would be useful.”
  • Nate Shoobs noted the need for seamless integration with tools used for data collection and management, emphasizing that “the ability to link assets through a simple hyperlink as opposed to having to worry about the asset server configuration” would enhance user experience.
  • The group emphasized the importance of two-way connections where Specify could pull data from external resources.
  • Matthew Cruz suggested that having “Specify generate a thumbnail preview of the content at the end of an external link” would enhance user experience. There was a general consensus that a more intuitive interface could facilitate better management of digital assets.
  • Miquel Martinez: “The big thing we would like is not ‘link’ specify element to those ‘links’ but upload and manage those media files FROM specify.”
  • 17 attendees gave a thumbs up to a comment asking about supporting external URLs as fully elevated Specify attachments:

Conclusion: Users have made it clear there is a strong desire to link records in their database to external digital asset management systems (DAMS) and repositories, such as MorphoSource, Sketchfab, eBird, iNaturalist, and BOLD, through URLs and other methods, including the Specify Network for GBIF and WoRMS. This provides a clear opportunity for Specify to enhance its integration capabilities and better support external linking. Wherever possible, reciprocal connections would provide massive benefits to the Specify user community.

Associated 3D Assets in Other Repositories:

  • There was interest in enhancing data visualization capabilities within Specify. Zach Randall mentioned the potential for linking to “environmental #### photogrammetry models,” indicating a desire for more advanced visualization tools that could help users better understand and present their collections.
  • Miquel Martinez stated, “We use Sketchfab and directly its only a link in comments/text field… but would be awesome to link with 3D models natively.”
  • Corinne Fuchs added, “Less important to us to view 3D models/meshes within Specify. But definitely want to easily connect to a given mesh from a CO/record.” This indicates that while there is interest in linking to 3D models, participants prefer functionality that allows easy access rather than embedding complex visualizations directly within Specify.

Conclusion: The consensus of the community was largely that 3D assets within Specify do not provide major value to collections management, but connecting to MorphoSource, Sketchfab, and other external asset repositories is crucial (see External URLs).

Sensitive Data & Publishing Assets:

  • Only specimen images are usually shared publicly:
    • Corinne Fuchs: “Occasional field notes & ID notes… Hopefully, we’ll be using morphosource links down the line, but it’s mostly photographs now.”
    • Heather Cole: “Sometimes ‘associated’ documentation might have personal contact information that would not be appropriate for us to make available online.”
  • Participants expressed the need for better management of permissions and visibility for sensitive information.
  • Discussions included the importance of complying with legal and ethical standards related to data sharing and privacy. Andy Bentley pointed out that “GGBN is looking for collections to share permit and accession information through their portal to comply with Nagoya,” highlighting the regulatory landscape affecting asset management.
  • Cody Thompson mentioned there are things they like to restrict. Nate Shoobs wants to be able to hide sensitive loan information from the public.

Conclusion: Effective management of sensitive data is very important for many users, and Specify does not currently offer a mechanism to keep sensitive attachments completely siloed from the public ones. This highlights the importance of complying with legal and ethical standards, such as the Nagoya Protocol, to ensure responsible data-sharing practices and protect sensitive information from unauthorized access.

Challenges with Metadata Management:

Participants raised concerns about the challenges associated with metadata management. Corinne Fuchs noted that “metadata/EXIF is a bit of a mess for us right now” and suggested that it would be beneficial if Specify could “ingest things on its own, but users could override or otherwise set metadata where needed.” This reflects a common issue many institutions face regarding the accuracy and consistency of metadata.

  • Corinne Fuchs: “Oh man, metadata/EXIF is a bit of a mess for us right now.”
  • Nate Shoobs: “We want metadata, but it would be nice to have it be an option during import.”
  • Corinne Fuchs: “It would be very convenient if Specify were able to ingest things on its own, but users could override or otherwise set metadata where needed.”

Conclusion: Users expressed a clear need for improvements in how metadata is ingested, managed, and utilized, emphasizing the importance of flexibility and user control.

Need for a Centralized Asset Management System:

  • The group expressed a desire for a more centralized asset management system that could integrate various types of data and media. Warren Brown and Nate Shoobs emphasized the importance of having “one database to rule them all,” suggesting that current systems often lead to fragmentation and inefficiency.

Conclusion: The desire for a more centralized asset management system reflects the community’s recognition of the inefficiencies and fragmentation present in current practices. A unified system that integrates various types of data and media would streamline workflows and improve the overall user experience, but users must be able to link to external systems when necessary (e.g. MorphoSource) to ensure this data is accessible.

Current Challenges:

Managing Permissions
  • Many users reported difficulties with managing permissions:
    • Nate Shoobs: “Agreed, permissions by whole table can be clunky.”, “I think part of this is that it’s based on table rather than data type… this user can only edit records they themselves created.”
    • Corinne Fuchs: “It would be a relief to be able to allow an intern account to change a quantity or a determination, but not other info.”
    • Niels Klazenga added, “I think you should be very careful about making permissions even more granular than they already are, as it will make the system much harder to run.”
  • The need for efficient handling of high-resolution images while maintaining fast access to low-resolution images was discussed:
    • Matthew Cruz: “From a performance perspective, for our CO specimen images, we need to upload lower-res images so the interface can render them quickly.”
Shared Attachments
  • The community voiced the need for attachments to connect to multiple specimens or other data tables:
    • Cody Thompson: “It would be great if we can… really hone in on the ability to say, take an image of a mouse, and the mouse has a parasite.”
    • Nate Shoobs: “We have scans of our collection ledgers that are linked to groups of 25 COs.”
    • Natalia LĂłpez Carranza: “YES!”
  • GitHub Issues:
  • Add support for selecting an existing attachment #5343
  • Add attachment deduplication tool #84

Other Feedback and Suggestions for Specify:

  • Demand for unique URLs for digital assets:
    • Warren Brown: “It would be really nice if there was something in the Specify ecosystem that was separate and distinct from Specify 7 that would allow us to publish a unique URL for every asset.”
    • This may already be possible as the asset server uses a unique URL for each attachment. Specify generates a random name for each asset!
  • Warren Brown also suggested developing a plugin architecture to facilitate better integration with external systems.