The integration of DiGIR and BioCASe
Döring, M., Giovanni, R., Hobern, D., Vieglais, D., Güntsch, A., Blum, S., Wieczorek, J., de la Torre, J.DiGIR and BioCASe are XML-based protocols for search and retrieval of data stored in distributed and heterogeneous sources. They are being used by most part of the existing biodiversity networks. Together, these networks are currently serving approximately 40 million records from biological collections databases and observation databases.
During the GBIF's Data Access and Database Interoperability subcommittee meeting held in Oaxaca 2004, the importance of integrating both protocols into a single common standard has been fully recognized and considered a priority. Since then, GBIF promoted a study involving representatives from both protocols. The results of that work include considerations taken from other existing standards such as XQuery, OpenGIS specifications and SOAP, and also a proposal for a new integrated protocol.