Use Of Digital Objects Research Articles

A complete digitization of German herbaria is possible, sensible and should be started now

Plants, fungi and algae are important components of global biodiversity and are fundamental to all ecosystems. They are the basis for human well-being, providing food, materials and medicines. Specimens of all three groups of organisms are accommodated in herbaria, where they are commonly referred to as botanical specimens.The large number of specimens in herbaria provides an ample, permanent and continuously improving knowledge base on these organisms and an indispensable source for the analysis of the distribution of species in space and time critical for current and future research relating to global biodiversity. In order to make full use of this resource, a research infrastructure has to be built that grants comprehensive and free access to the information in herbaria and botanical collections in general. This can be achieved through digitization of the botanical objects and associated data.The botanical research community can count on a long-standing tradition of collaboration among institutions and individuals. It agreed on data standards and standard services even before the advent of computerization and information networking, an example being the Index Herbariorum as a global registry of herbaria helping towards the unique identification of specimens cited in the literature.In the spirit of this collaborative history, 51 representatives from 30 institutions advocate to start the digitization of botanical collections with the overall wall-to-wall digitization of the flat objects stored in German herbaria. Germany has 70 herbaria holding almost 23 million specimens according to a national survey carried out in 2019. 87% of these specimens are not yet digitized. Experiences from other countries like France, the Netherlands, Finland, the US and Australia show that herbaria can be comprehensively and cost-efficiently digitized in a relatively short time due to established workflows and protocols for the high-throughput digitization of flat objects.Most of the herbaria are part of a university (34), fewer belong to municipal museums (10) or state museums (8), six herbaria belong to institutions also supported by federal funds such as Leibniz institutes, and four belong to non-governmental organizations. A common data infrastructure must therefore integrate different kinds of institutions.Making full use of the data gained by digitization requires the set-up of a digital infrastructure for storage, archiving, content indexing and networking as well as standardized access for the scientific use of digital objects. A standards-based portfolio of technical components has already been developed and successfully tested by the Biodiversity Informatics Community over the last two decades, comprising among others access protocols, collection databases, portals, tools for semantic enrichment and annotation, international networking, storage and archiving in accordance with international standards. This was achieved through the funding by national and international programs and initiatives, which also paved the road for the German contribution to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).Herbaria constitute a large part of the German botanical collections that also comprise living collections in botanical gardens and seed banks, DNA- and tissue samples, specimens preserved in fluids or on microscope slides and more. Once the herbaria are digitized, these resources can be integrated, adding to the value of the overall research infrastructure. The community has agreed on tasks that are shared between the herbaria, as the German GBIF model already successfully demonstrates.We have compiled nine scientific use cases of immediate societal relevance for an integrated infrastructure of botanical collections. They address accelerated biodiversity discovery and research, biomonitoring and conservation planning, biodiversity modelling, the generation of trait information, automated image recognition by artificial intelligence, automated pathogen detection, contextualization by interlinking objects, enabling provenance research, as well as education, outreach and citizen science.We propose to start this initiative now in order to valorize German botanical collections as a vital part of a worldwide biodiversity data pool.

Use of Digital Objects of Programming (DLO) for the Teaching in Educational Institutions - Riohacha, Colombia

Objective: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTS) are part of the world of our students; it would be interesting for the teaching staff to opt for the use of versatile tools, such as Digital Learning Objects (DLO), which was raised to characterize the use of DLOfor the teaching of mathematics in the educational institution School Denzil Riohacha City in Colombia. Materials and Methods: An investigation was conducted not experimental field and cross-sectional, in a total of 40 teachers belonging to the educational institution, by means of surveys, which provided information on the characteristics, components, and types of DLO, using a categorization system (Suitable, Moderately suitable, appropriate and inappropriate). Finding: The results indicate that, in terms of the three dimensions studied, all of which are available in the appropriate category, finding that teachers recognize all aspects related to the DLO. Applications: It is concluded that the structure and use of DLO in the educational institution, is adequate School Denzil, however, there are strategies to optimize the use of these tools, especially the use of this instrument, to follow up on this aspect in the educational institutions in Colombia. Keywords: Digital Learning Objects (DLO), Educational Institutions, Education, Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Utilização didática de objetos digitais de aprendizagem na educação on-line

O trabalho aborda a da importância da utilização de Objetos Digitais de Aprendizagem a partir de exemplos dispostos no repositório do projeto Rede Internacional Virtual de Educação (RIVED). Analisa os aspectos pedagógicos da prática do professor em sala de aula referente a aprendizagem do aluno com a utilização de objetos digitais de aprendizagem. O tema aqui trabalhado visa construir e ampliar as condições didático-pedagógicas para a melhoria do trabalho nos cursos semi-presenciais e a distância, envolvendo formação de professores. Investiga contribuições de metodologias envolvendo planejamento e uso de objetos digitais de aprendizagem na docência online.

BOUNDARIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES IN COMPUTER-ASSISTED ETHNOBOTANY

Designing software alongside ethnobotanists and Indigenous owners and practitioners of traditional knowledge, brings to light a range of issues which expose some of the assumptions underlying both Western ethnobotany and software design. In collaborating over the development of software to facilitate the use of digital objects in knowledge work, issues of knowledge politics, accountability, ontologies, and epistemologies arise. This paper discusses the ways these issues, in a particular context, led to the development of a flexible, ontologically flat, epistemologically open, ethnobotanical software design.