Thanks Francisco, 

My apologies to all for having just sat on the side and not being more active. I personally appreciated the debate as well as the knowledge and experience mix of all the contributors. I have learned a lot. 

If not too late, I would like to express few considerations. 

I am partly convinced of the usefulness for PGRFA accessions of a new PUI or PUID, which could be a DOI. As recognized, accessions in the global PGRFA community do have PUI already (MCPD: INSTCODE + ACCENUMB, if the standard is applied as defined "ACCENUMB - This is the unique identifier for accessions within a genebank, and is assigned when a sample is entered into the genebank collection" - according to the data reported in GENESYS and EURISCO VIR data appear not MCPD compliant). But DNA sequences don't (is that the only reason for a new PUI?) And DOI, ARK and LSID, I learned, could satisfy that requirement. 

What I find less convincing are the argumentations that it will be easier to identify possible duplicates with a new PUI assigned to accessions. The duplication issue for living organisms such as seed samples which are periodically regenerated deserves a careful approach in my view and cannot be simplified through a few passport descriptors.

I am also concerned that opaque DOI will be used and/or referred to by info users/providers - I personally have difficulty remembering long random numeric and/or alfa-numeric sequences and frequently incur in error when have to refer or report them. But, users could be relieved from having to deal with DOIs, machines will and genebank managers (but they also are GLIS users!). 

Para 19 of http://www.planttreaty.org/sites/default/files/cogis1w3.pdf:"To date, many initiatives, in several domains, have attempted to set up a global information system following a centralized approach. These methods, while producing some valuable results, have failed over time due to the enormous transaction costs and, among other limiting factors, because data curation was handled away from the originator."

Some kind of centralization for GLIS seems unavoidable, but the more data curation remains with the originator without too much hassle the better.

Thank you and nice week-end to all,

stefano

-----Original Message-----
From: Global Information System on PGRFA [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lopez, Francisco (AGDT)
Sent: 13 March 2015 17:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Week 3 - MCPD to DWC mapping - the DwC germplasm extension

Dear all,
            I think that there is a wide agreement on the fact that the DWC germplasm extension combined with the DOIs will help a lot the functions we listed this week for the Global Information System.

The discussion during the last days has evolved very quickly and focused on a number of minimum fields to be registered with the DOIs, taking into account the principle of minimum effort, particularly on the side of the data curator, indicated by Axel.   

There is also wide agreement to use the existing fields included in the MCPD (and in the DWC extension) and, from those, to select a mandatory shorter list to be registered with the DOIs, so GLIS can add value to the existing data sets (identify potential duplicates, connect similar material from different databases, automatically discover information associated with the same germplasm in different locations,  etc.)

So far, there also wide agreement on INSTCODE and ACCENUMB.  You all referred to them,  including Adriana, Marco and Dag.  Additionally, other descriptors like OTHERNUMB should be included as mandatory for the identification of potential duplicates as explained by Stephan and also GENUS and  CROP for other basic functions of the system.

We should also encourage re-use of existing vocabularies thus promoting interoperability and the GLIS can benefit from ongoing work in TDWG and elsewhere, highlighted by Dag, Éamonn and others, to provide a solid foundation to biodiversity informatics through ontology development and I have also noted the suggestions made by Ramona  regarding the Planteome project, which looks quite interesting.

Thank you.
Regards,
Francisco

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