Project Objectives and Milestones

Objectives

To determine whether IV techniques can assist in allowing taxonomists to search and browse large alternative taxonomies to aid understanding and data integration.

Detailed Prototype Requirements

Initial investigations resulted in the following requirements for the IV prototpye:

• R1. Deal with individual taxonomies on the scale of 200,000+ nodes.
• R2. Encompass multiple hierarchies.
• R3. Handle incomplete and incongruent rank structures within and between individual taxonomies.
• R4. Encompass taxonomy specific aspects such as explicit synonymy and homonymy relationships across hierarchies.
• R5. Allow detailed examination of and interaction with taxa sets at multiple levels.
• R6. Allow taxonomists to explore the essential differences between taxonomies; not just the broad similarities.
• R7. Provide a mechanism to allow viewpoints and discoveries to be shared between taxonomists.

Work Packages & Deliverables

The prototype requirements will be met through a series of workpackages and related outputs.

• WP 1 Task capture and data analysis (4 months)

  • Set of basic task requirements.
    Status: Done
  • Data model.
    Status: Done. SimpleTaxaSchema. Also uses TCS, Darwin Core Version 2.
  • Report evaluating current state-of-the-art techniques.
    Status: Done (see papers)
  
  

• WP 2 Multiple Hierarchy Visualisation Prototype (4 months)

  • Prototype that allows multiple tree navigation satisfying R1, R2 & R3.
    Status: Done Java Webstart Demo.
  • A paper describing the evaluation of the prototype.
    Status: Done Paper1, Paper 2.
  
  

• WP 3 Synonymy Prototype (8 months)

  • Prototype incorporating synonymy and homonymy issues satisfying R4.
    Status: Multi-tree prototype completed.
  • A paper describing the incorporation of both synonymy and name linking visualisation between taxonomies.
    Status: Done Paper 3.
  
  

• WP 4 Tree Comparison Prototype (8 months)

  Output :
  • Final prototype satisfying R5, R6 & R7 (including methods for communicating structural differences between hierarchies).
    Status: TBC
  • Paper describing completed prototype.
    Status: TBC
  
  

• WP 5 Evaluation (continuous after 4 months)

  • Measures of user satisfaction and performance, along with recommendations for changes in next iteration.
    Status: Completed for WP 2 & 3. TBC for WP 4.
  • A final evaluation of sufficiently scale to allow results to be statistically valid, garnering empirical data regarding the visualisation's ability to allow taxonomists to acquire knowledge.
    Status: TBC
  • Paper reporting evaluation.
    Status: TBC
  
  

• Workshops

  • Workshop 1
    Status: TBC.
  • Workshop 2
    Status: TBC