A new version of the BioCASe Provider Software has been released. The focus for improvements has been on the new XML archiving feature: The web interface has been overhauled and reacts faster now. If it is kept open during the archiving process, less load is put on the server for showing the progress log. Several smaller bugs have been fixed.

Shortly before Easter, a new version of the BioCASe Provider Software has been released. It comprises mainly bug fixes. Compatibility with Internet Information Server has been improved; if SQL Server is used, the configuration tool now provides drop-down lists for table and column names.

A complete list of bug fixes can be found in the version history.

A new major version of the BioCASe Provider Software has been released. As an important new feature, version 3 can now create XML archives that store all information published by a BioCASe web service in a single file. If required, these archives can be transformed into DarwinCore Archives in a subsequent step.

In addition, a number of smaller changes and optimizations have been implemented. Metadata retrieval is now also supported for Oracle databases, which allows an easier configuration of the according web services. For a complete list of changes, see the version history.

A new version of the Provider Software has been released. Now most configuration pages feature a “Help” link that points directly to the respective tutorial of the new PyWrapper documentation wiki. Moreover, it contains a number of smaller bug fixes, please see the version history for a complete list.

The new PyWrapper documentation wiki is now online at http://wiki.bgbm.org/bps. It has been rewritten completely from scratch for the latest version of the BioCASe Provider Software (2.6.0).

It features several step-by-step tutorials on installation, configuration, debugging, on preparing a database for publication with BioCASe, a beginner’s guide, a short documentation of ABCD, and a list of frequently asked questions. Many pages in the upcoming version of the Provider Software will include a “Help” link that points directly to the respective page in the online documentation.

Version 2.6 of the Provider Software has been released. It features major changes in the user interface for the configuration tool that should ease the setup of the BPS considerably. Table setup has been completely overhauled; table and column names will now be retrieved from the database and shown in drop-down-boxes for commonly used DBMS. The mapping editor also uses drop-down-boxes now.

If MySQL or Postgres are used, the Provider Software now takes advantage of the OFFSET SQL clauses for serving Search requests, which increases performance for harvesting applications. Last but not least, a number of bugs have been fixed. See the Version History for a complete list of changes.

The OpenUP! project launched in March will use BioCASe Technology to connect millions of multimedia objects stored in natural history collections to the European network Europeana, thereby making them accessible to the public in a high quality.

In order to build the required expertise in the associated project partners, a two day hands-on workshop was held on May 30th and 31st at the Botanic Museum in Berlin to teach the installation and configuration of the BioCASe Provider Software. 17 Participants from 9 countries will now use their knowledge to set up BioCASe installations in their own institutions.

Italy is planning to set up its own BioCASe-based biodiversity network. Funded by the Ministry of Environment, in the first phase of the project several data providers will publish at least 1 million records. The BioCASe Provider Software will be used to feed specimen information from the data providers to a central node, which will then propagate the data to the BioCASe network and GBIF.

In order to build local BioCASe expertise, a hands-on workshop was held on March 2nd and 3rd in Rome. An overview on the architecure of biodiversity networks, the basic principles and the standards used was given. On the second day the participants installed their own BioCASe instance on local computers and configured the publication of a small collection database. Once working, they were used to set up a small, local biodiversity network with a prototypic data portal allowing a distributed query.

The European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) published today its selection of the most promising next generation large-scale Research Infrastructures. In the area of biodiversity research the LIFE WATCH (http://www.lifewatch.eu) plan was selected. The plan aims at constructing an e-Science and Technology Infrastructure for biodiversity data and observatories.

This initiative developed by 8 major EU scientific networks is the first step towards the realisation of the infrastructure. It builds upon preceding developments such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), and brings together facilities for data generation and interoperability in support of networks of biodiversity observatories (biological collections and field sites), together with digital laboratories offering analytical and modeling tools.

The Life Watch infrastructure will boost many developments. The wealth of large data sets from different levels of biodiversity opens up new and exciting research opportunities. This large-scale approach supports the understanding and managing of the impacts of climate change on the distribution, adaptation and functions of biodiversity. The infrastructure will promote and facilitate value-added networking both with respect to data and tools, and will enable a more focused attention of the scientific communities on common problems.

The project XML Security Services for BioCASe presents the first public release of the project’s software distribution. In addition, based on the developed software components, an example scenario is online now demonstrating the integral functionality of the security services.

The project is funded by the EU project SYNTHESYS and the BMBF project GBIF-D and take place in cooperation with the Botanical Museum and Botanical Garden Berlin (BGBM) and Networked Information Systems (NBI).

Our task concerns the integration of security services providing role based access control and rights management enforcement as well as the addition of confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of data (sources) in the preexisting XML protocol environment (BioCASE). For that, some specialised XACML components and policies have been developed and implemented in conjunction with the XML-Signature standard.

The software was implemented in Java and published under the Mozilla Public License (V1.1).