BIDS Research Affiliate Neil Davies (NSF 2004642) and colleagues at Columbia University (NSF 2004839), the University of Arizona (NSF 2004562), and the University of Kansas (NSF 2004815) have just published a new paper introducing the Internet of Samples (iSamples), a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional NSF collaborative cyberinfrastructure program to design, develop, and promote service infrastructure to uniquely, consistently, and conveniently identify material samples, record metadata about them, and persistently link them to other samples and derived digital content, including images, data, and publications.
Abstract: Sampling the natural world and built environment underpins much of science, yet systems for managing material samples and associated (meta)data are fragmented across institutional catalogs, practices for identification, and discipline-specific (meta)data standards. The Internet of Samples (iSamples) is a standards-based collaboration to uniquely, consistently, and conveniently identify material samples, record core metadata about them, and link them to other samples, data, and research products. iSamples extends existing resources and best practices in data stewardship to render a cross-domain cyberinfrastructure that enables transdisciplinary research, discovery, and reuse of material samples in 21st century natural science.
