[Project Proposal]: DwC archive spreadsheet-style editor

[7yl4r]

Project Description

A familiar spreadsheet view like excel or gsheet but with column headers specified web3-style for Darwin Core. Setting a column heading would have a different UI than editing a cell normally; whatever the user enters is checked against the DwC (and other?) metadata ontologies. In the csv file, the header will be set to an RDF URI, allowing the application to look up a machine-readable definition of the column, apply special formatting, automated data checking, and enable cross-compatibility with other semantic web applications. AI-assisted fuzzy-matching of user input to "valid" column names could also be explored here.

Use cases:

• As a student I want guidance on how to name column headers so that my data collection is harvestable.
• As a data collector I want to record my taxa-occurrence data in something other than excel so that *the data is automatically DwC-archive compatible.
• As a data manager I want to do manual inspections of DwC archive data so that I can check the validity.

Expected Outcomes

The code sprint should focus on lo-fi prototyping and identifying possible technologies to build upon.

Skills required

spreadsheet, Darwin Core, web3

Expertise

Intermediate

Topic Lead(s)

????

Relevant links

possible starting points

• https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core
• https://github.com/DataTables/DataTablesSrc
• https://github.com/DoubleTrade/lit-datatable
• https://github.com/indgy/LittleBigTable
• https://github.com/search?q=spreadsheet&type=repositories&s=forks&o=desc

[iwensu0313]

@7yl4r curious about this topic! We have a data management and coordination project at Axiom over the next year that involves working with PIs to help them meet Darwin Core requirements for archival. We have some folks at Axiom with familiarity/expertise in DwC (but not coding). Would that be helpful?

[7yl4r]

In my opinion the limiting factor here is programmer-hours. If we can find a technical collaborator then we will definitely include yall in the discussions.

[7yl4r]

Thanks to Stace Beaulieu for finding & sharing this gsheet add-on (pdf), which demonstrates the concept well.

Unfortunately, I can't find the source code or the app and the linked website (https://dwcaassistant.com/) is down.

[MathewBiddle]

Thank you for taking the time to propose this topic! From the Code Sprint topic survey, this has garnered a lot of interest.

Following the contributing guidelines on selecting a code sprint topic I have assigned this topic to @7yl4r. Unless indicated otherwise, the assignee will be responsible for identifying a plan for the code sprint topic, establishing a team, and taking the lead on executing said plan. The first action for the lead is to:

• Create a Sprint Topic website - https://github.com/ioos/ioos-code-sprint/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#creating-sprint-topic-webpages

[vijaybarve]

@7yl4r Darwin Core Archive Assistant Add-on is here https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/darwin_core_archive_assistant/567341081140 and the source is here https://github.com/zedomel/dwca-gsheet-assistant