Accelerating specimen identification through Virtual Collections while promoting collaboration

What this was about

Melanie de Leeuw showed how the DiSSCo platform Disscover is turning from a passive lookup tool into an active workspace through Virtual Reference Collections (VRCs), funded by TETTRIs. VRCs pool digital specimens from multiple institutions into one virtual drawer. Three use cases were given: remote curation (e.g. Naturalis hawk moths identified only to family), expert-validated machine-learning training sets, and virtual field guides for rare taxa. Each VRC gets a DOI, aggregates across institutions, keeps two-way specimen–collection relationships, and supports expert annotation. Screenshots of the acceptance environment showed public browsing and ORCID-authenticated creation.

Why it matters. It turns existing digitised specimens into a collaborative identification resource and suggests a route to citable ML training data. It also raises the unresolved question of feeding annotations back to physical collections.

In the room

• Taxonomy is stuck in a cycle: physical distance limits experts, and digitised data stuck in silos doesn't help.
• VRCs pool digital specimens from institutions such as Naturalis, London, Paris and Oslo into one workspace.
• Use cases: curation at a distance, ML training datasets, and virtual field guides for rare or fragile taxa.
• Four pillars: a DOI per VRC, cross-institutional aggregation, dynamic entity relationships and active remote curation.
• Browsing is open without login; creating a VRC requires ORCID login and an appropriate role.
• Next steps: user-group involvement, VRC modification while preserving stability, and an annotation validation framework.

Notable moments