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Biological research collections holding billions of specimens world-wide provide the most important baseline information for systematic biodiversity research. Increasingly, specimen data records become available in virtual herbaria and data portals. The traditional (physical) annotation procedure fails here, so that an important pathway of research documentation and data quality control is broken. In order to create an online annotation system, we analysed, modeled and adapted traditional specimen annotation workflows. The AnnoSys system accesses collection data from either conventional web resources or the Biological Collection Access Service (BioCASe) and accepts XML-based data standards like ABCD or DarwinCore. It comprises a searchable annotation data repository, a user interface, and a subscription based message system. We describe the main components of AnnoSys and its current and planned interoperability with biodiversity data portals and networks. Details are given on the underlying architectural model, which implements the W3C OpenAnnotation model and allows the adaptation of AnnoSys to different problem domains. Advantages and disadvantages of different digital annotation and feedback approaches are discussed. For the biodiversity domain, AnnoSys proposes best practice procedures for digital annotations of complex records., Database Url: https://annosys.bgbm.fu-berlin.de/AnnoSys/AnnoSys., (© The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Genomic samples of non-model organisms are becoming increasingly important in a broad range of studies from developmental biology, biodiversity analyses, to conservation. Genomic sample definition, description, quality, voucher information and metadata all need to be digitized and disseminated across scientific communities. This information needs to be concise and consistent in today's ever-increasing bioinformatic era, for complementary data aggregators to easily map databases to one another. In order to facilitate exchange of information on genomic samples and their derived data, the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) Data Standard is intended to provide a platform based on a documented agreement to promote the efficient sharing and usage of genomic sample material and associated specimen information in a consistent way. The new data standard presented here build upon existing standards commonly used within the community extending them with the capability to exchange data on tissue, environmental and DNA sample as well as sequences. The GGBN Data Standard will reveal and democratize the hidden contents of biodiversity biobanks, for the convenience of everyone in the wider biobanking community. Technical tools exist for data providers to easily map their databases to the standard.Database URL: http://terms.tdwg.org/wiki/GGBN_Data_Standard., (© The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.)

We present the model and implementation of a workflow that blazes a trail in systematic biology for the re-usability of character data (data on any kind of characters of pheno- and genotypes of organisms) and their additivity from specimen to taxon level. We take into account that any taxon characterization is based on a limited set of sampled individuals and characters, and that consequently any new individual and any new character may affect the recognition of biological entities and/or the subsequent delimitation and characterization of a taxon. Taxon concepts thus frequently change during the knowledge generation process in systematic biology. Structured character data are therefore not only needed for the knowledge generation process but also for easily adapting characterizations of taxa. We aim to facilitate the construction and reproducibility of taxon characterizations from structured character data of changing sample sets by establishing a stable and unambiguous association between each sampled individual and the data processed from it. Our workflow implementation uses the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy Platform, a comprehensive taxonomic data management and publication environment to: (i) establish a reproducible connection between sampled individuals and all samples derived from them; (ii) stably link sample-based character data with the metadata of the respective samples; (iii) record and store structured specimen-based character data in formats allowing data exchange; (iv) reversibly assign sample metadata and character datasets to taxa in an editable classification and display them and (v) organize data exchange via standard exchange formats and enable the link between the character datasets and samples in research collections, ensuring high visibility and instant re-usability of the data. The workflow implemented will contribute to organizing the interface between phylogenetic analysis and revisionary taxonomic or monographic work., Database Url: http://campanula.e-taxonomy.net/., (© The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.)