Papers and Posters

Abstract

Improving the web based data discovery and mapping experience
Flemons, Paul. Australian Museum

The Australian Museum in conjunction with a number of other NSW Government Natural Resource Agencies has established a quasi distributed data access and web mapping application called BioNet. The approach used ensures the data owners retain control of their data and improves the speed and useability of the application. It also overcomes a number of resourcing and security issues.

There are two major components to BioNet:-

• data mining and discovery
• data mapping

Data Mining and Discovery

The data mining process has two steps - 1.selection of taxa and 2. searching the relevant natural history databases using the taxa search term. The use of a Master Names List for the species of NSW provides the user with a number of options for taxa selection. These are direct entry of scientific or common name and a browse facility. Once taxa have been chosen the natural history databases are queried using the taxa name/s.

Data Mapping

A light client side approach to the mapping application has ensured that the client side browser compatibility problems are minimised. No Java applet download or support is required