"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."
A team of researchers at Tulane University has been granted an award to develop GEOLocate, a software tool for assigning latitude and longitude coordinates to text descriptions of locations where scientific collections were made (Georeferencing). There are hundreds of millions of historical records of museum specimens and observations world-wide with natural language descriptions of location but not latitude or longitude. Georeferencing is a critical step in the processing of collection event data, a process that starts with digitizing collection records, continues with databasing and networking the data, and ultimately gives researchers access to the vast specimen and data resources of natural history museums. Georeferencing allows data from previous collection events to be displayed on digital maps, permitting researchers to visualize the spatial and temporal intensity of scientific collecting activity, examine species distributions, and developing predictive models of species habitat use. It allows researchers to use natural history data to address important scientific and societal needs such as biodiversity causes and effects, conservation, environmental restoration, and preparing for global climate change. The GEOLocate tool kit has gained wide acceptance in the natural history collection community because of its geospatial accuracy, automation and correction features. In this project, the team is making critical advancements of the GEOLocate toolkit, including 1) enhancing its web services for natural language processing and georeferencing of locality descriptions; 2) improving GEOLocate?s core algorithm for more efficient and accurate georeferencing; 3) integrating uncertainty calculations into the tool; 4) deploying default web mapping services for use in GEOLocate; 5) completely rewriting the desktop software in Java, utilizing web services for georeferencing and web mapping services for visualization; 6) integrating new GEOLocate user interface components into the Specify biological collections data management system; 7) enhancing user support & training; and 8) gradually phasing out the desktop version of GEOLocate following migration to the new Internet-based client. The proposed advancements to GEOLocate will not only enhance the capture of geo-coordinate data from existing electronic collection records and newly digitized records; it will support the next generation of research use of natural history collection data, performing all of its services via remote distributed services. The project will include student participation to give practical experience to the next generation of scientists. Additional information about the project can be found at www.museum.tulane.edu/geolocate/.
