iSamples (Internet of Samples): Cyberinfrastructure to Support Transdisciplinary Use of Natural History Material Samples

Abstract:

An increasing range of interdisciplinary research including, for example, studies of nutrient flux, environmental health, or crop diseases, requires collection and analysis of both biotic (microbial, plant, animal) and soil, water, or rock samples, yet there is no consistent way to give identifiers to these samples and track data about all them. The current ecosystem of sample and collection management in the U.S. and globally is highly fragmented across stakeholders including museums, federal agencies, academic institutions, and individual researchers, with diverse practices for sample identification, discipline-specific data and metadata standards, and disconnected institutional catalogs. The Internet of Samples (iSamples) is a multidisciplinary project recently funded by the US NSF to develop a transdisciplinary infrastructure that will provide services to uniquely, consistently, and conveniently identify material samples, record metadata about them, and link them to other samples, derived data, and research results published in the scientific literature. iSamples will consist of two key components: iSamples-in-a-Box (iSB), a standalone system that enables creation of identifiers and associated metadata, metadata management, sample identifier resolution, and discovery of samples; and iSamples Central (iSC), a permanent Internet service that preserves and indexes sample metadata to ensure reliable discovery and retrieval, and that provides a gateway between iSB instances and identifier authorities to ensure that remote iSB content is fully synchronized with the relevant authorities (e.g., IGSNs generated on iSB are synchronized with iSC and the IGSN central authority). By providing these services that augment existing identifier authority capabilities, iSC enables support of identifier types such as ARKs or DOIs that are not traditionally associated with material samples, but are already in use by some organizations.

iSamples will extend existing domain- and sample-specific cyberinfrastructure, such as the IGSN Global Sample Number, DataONE, CyVerse, Genomic Observatories Metadata Database (GEOME), System for Earth Sample Registration (SESAR), and Open Context, rendering a cross-domain infrastructure that can serve all samples from the natural and built environment.