Welcome to the Globally Unique Identifiers (GUID) Wiki

Welcome to the TDWG GUID Wiki. This is a collaboration area used to discuss the use of Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) in our community. The first Wiki discussion about GUIDs in the lead up to the two TIP sponsored GUID meetings (see below) was hosted on the GBIF site.

Table of Contents

LSID Home Page

Visit the LSID page for documentation on LSIDs.

GUID and LSID Applicability Statements Public Review

• GUID and LSID AS Review - a page for the collation of submissions for the GUID and LSID Applicability Statement Public Review.

A Definition of Globally Unique Identifiers (for the purposes of this group)

A globally unique identifier, or GUID, is a system that provides mechanisms to identify and access data objects on the Web. The main characteristics of a GUID system are:

• GUID systems have identifiers, which are character strings associated with data objects. urn:lsid:tdwg.org:TaxonName:12345 and doi:10.1000/182 are examples of identifiers.
• An identifier in a GUID system is persistent, i.e., it is permanently associated with a data object.
• An identifier in a GUID system is globally unique, i.e., it identifies a single data object uniquely within the system.
• Identifiers in a GUID system are actionable, i.e., the system provides mechanisms for clients to access a data object from its associated identifier. This is equivalent to saying that objects in a GUID system are locatable.
• A GUID system also provides mechanisms to describe data objects, i.e., it provides metadata about them.

Relevant Documents

• LSID HTTP Proxy Usage Recommendations - a set of rules to make LSID more interoperable with standard World Wide Web and Semantic Web applications.

GUID Working Groups

Two main working groups have been created during GUID-1 Workshop (see the report) to implement the initial components of the GUID infrastructure and to address outstanding issues:

• InfrastructureWorkingGroup - will address the key issues regarding the deployment of LSID as the GUID technology for biodiversity informatics.
• PrototypingWorkingGroup - will develop prototypes of test cases to test aspects of a GUID infrastructure.

Events

• Meeting to develop an LSID deployment policy for the Australasian Biodiversity Federation - April 2-4, 2007 at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, Austrailia - This event is past

• GUID-1 Workshop - Feb 1-3, 2006 at NESCent, Durham, NC, USA - This event is past

• GUID-2 Workshop - June 10-12, 2006 at the e-Science Institute (e-SI) in Edinburgh, Scotland - This event is past

General Content

• Background - Information on the TDWG/GBIF GUID initiative
• Glossary - Definition of terms used by this community
• Process - How we are organizing the work
• How to participate - Add your comments to the wiki and join our mailing list
• How to use this wiki - Please read before adding new pages
• People
• ExistingProjects
• OutdatedPages

Other Documents

• GUID Technologies - Candidate technologies under evaluation
• Use Cases
• GUIDs and LSIDs - Powerpoint presentation by David Thau (TDWG meeting 2004)
• Globally Unique Identifiers for Biodiversity Informatics - Powerpoint presentation by Donald Hobern
• GBIF GUID Services Strategy - outline plan for development of GBIF GUID services from GBIF Data Portal Strategy
• ReallyLeanPhpAuthority

Software

• Software Inventory
• Current work

Contact

The TDWG Infrastructure Project Team was:

• Lee Belbin, Australia - Project Manager (lee@tdwgREMOVE-THIS.org)
• Roger Hyam, United Kingdom - Technical Architect
• Ricardo Pereira, Brazil - Software Engineer

The GBIF contact is:

• Éamonn Ó Tuama (eotuama@gbifREMOVE-THIS.org)

Categories