At its core, the Specify Collections Consortium (“SCC” or “Consortium”) is a collaborative endeavor built on a shared goal: to create and maintain accessible cyberinfrastructure for biodiversity and geology collections globally. When an institution joins the SCC, they are not simply acquiring a service; they are becoming a vital partner in this collective mission to advance global science. Membership in the SCC is a strategic investment in a shared, global infrastructure. It is the backbone that ensures the long-term sustainability and continuous evolution of Specify software, which, as a testament to our shared commitment, is freely shared under the GPL 3.0 license and can be compiled and hosted by anyone, anywhere.
Unmatched Expert Support
A critical advantage of the consortium is access to a support team with substantial and specialized expertise. The SCC provides a team of professionals who understand the unique challenges of collections management and have decades of experience in the software, services, and community we serve.
Beyond technical support, we can provide expert consultation on the deployment and use of the software, data management, best practices for data publishing, and effective workflows pulled from our extensive experience in the collections space. Having an expert available who understands the nuances of collections work in the platform is crucial. It prevents small data modeling or workflow questions from becoming major roadblocks by providing relevant answers quickly, thus saving curatorial and IT staff countless hours of troubleshooting.
The SCC removes the typical barrier that collections and curatorial staff face when addressing their needs with institutional IT or software engineers. Immediate access to domain-specific knowledge is a powerful resource that a single institution cannot replicate without hiring its own dedicated collections informatics staff.
Specify Cloud Advantage: Fully Managed Solution
In 2018, we began Specify Cloud as a way for organizations to have a fully functional Specify instance installed and maintained, with no need for local hardware or IT support. This is a standard component of Consortium memberships so all SCC members can take advantage of the opportunity.
Specify database hosting includes timely installation of new releases, backups of the database and digital assets, and constant monitoring. This option leverages the SCC team as dedicated technical experts. We specialize in the infrastructure, deployment, updating, and security of the entire Specify ecosystem.
Opting for Specify Cloud means an institution does not need dedicated system administrators, DevOps engineers, or database specialists. All of these complex technical responsibilities are covered by the membership, allowing the curatorial team to focus entirely on its collection’s data and research.
Members utilizing the Specify Cloud also allow SCC staff to dedicate more support efforts to ensure Specify software meets user needs, rather than assisting with routine deployment and maintenance for complex self-hosted setups. We can provide faster and better user support for hosted users, offering a highly cost-effective alternative to managing a self-hosted environment.
An Equitable Contribution
The SCC is a collaborative, non-profit partnership between our software team and member institutions. The cost is kept reasonable with membership fees proportional to the scale of an institution, its resources, and its needs. This model was chosen for two reasons: first, investment by larger institutions enables smaller collections to contribute, use the software, and mobilize their data; and second, this model ensures that the software is developed and maintained for decades to come. This protects the institution’s investment and ensures that the platform continues to evolve with the needs of the global collections community.
The aim of this approach is equity, to ensure that institutions of all sizes, from small collections to large national organizations, can participate and benefit. The pooled contributions from all members is what sustains the expert development and support teams, funding the shared global infrastructure that makes the entire Consortium sustainable for decades to come.
Information about membership pricing can be found in the SCC Membership Rights and Responsibilities.
A Platform Built for Flexibility and Customization
A key challenge for collections management is that no two disciplines are identical. The data structures required for a herbarium sheet are vastly different from those of an ethanol-preserved fish, a fossil, or a DNA sample. Even within a single discipline, collection requirements may vary from specialty to specialty and from Collection Manager to Collection Manager. Specify is built to handle this diversity, as it is, not as a rigid, “one-size-fits-all” platform.
Membership in the SCC enables an institution to use a single platform for a wide range of scientific disciplines, including botany, mycology, mammalogy, invertebrate zoology, ichthyology, herpetology, vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, paleobotany, ornithology, entomology, geology, mineralogy, meteoritics, petrology, and many more. Many institutions have successfully customized Specify to meet the unique needs of other disciplines in the collections space.
Specify software allows users to modify the interface schema and data entry forms. Users can customize which tables and fields are used to capture data unique to their discipline and design workflows that match their collection’s processes. Specify conforms to a collection’s needs, not the other way around.
Data Publishing & Mobilization
Specify supports robust data sharing using globally standard vocabularies like Darwin Core with accompanying GBIF extensions. Data sharing, either with the general public through an institutional Web Portal or an aggregator such as Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), or iDigBio.
Specify software mobilizes collections data, enhancing the visibility and utility of the information stored in the database. It makes specimen data accessible to a global community of researchers, maximizing the value of the collections while demonstrating their importance to the institution and administration.
A Sustainable Collaboration
The consortium model is an important component of the SCC sustainability plan. By including members in the direction and success of the SCC, Specify software will continue to evolve to meet member needs and the changing scientific landscape. Before the establishment of the Specify Collections Consortium, we survived for almost 30 years on grant funding and served our users with growing success and satisfaction. With the conversion to a membership model, both our development speed and our rate of growth have increased, and we look forward to the next 30+ years of collection and scientific support.
Conclusion
The Specify Collections Consortium represents a powerful strategic partnership that enables institutions of all sizes to manage their collections data with world-class tools and support. By pooling resources, consortium members gain a sustainable, expert-driven solution that is highly robust, flexible, and cost-effective.
This collaborative model supports a platform that not only meets the complex challenges of today but will also continue to evolve based on the needs of its members, securing the value of collections and the data they hold for generations to come.