DiSSCo Prepare Deliverable D6.1 - Harmonization and migration plan for the integration of CMSs into the coherent DiSSCo Research Infrastructure

Abstract

DiSSCo Prepare Deliverable D6.1 describes the concepts for the integration of collection management systems (CMS) into the DiSSCo Research Infrastructure (RI), including recommendations for APIs guidelines. By identifying the challenges of this integration, the basic requirements for the harmonization of CMSs and subsequent interoperability with DiSSCo’s central Digital Specimen services can be identified and addressed. One of the main challenges is the synchronization of specimen data in the DiSSCo RI with data in local CMSs of collection-holding institutions, as these represent a high diversity of data models, software frameworks and API capabilities. Furthermore, different workflows and use cases from multiple disciplines need to be accommodated, while the technological diversity of CMSs necessitates content-wise abstraction in a sustainable implementation. With the help of results from an Event Storming workshop with a mixed group of curators, collection managers, CMS users and vendors, the most important event types in CMSs have been identified, aggregated and classified to allow for a harmonized, formal description of events so they can be used for standardized communication between the CMS and the DiSSCo RI. The DiSSCo RI will provide an abstraction layer through FAIR Digital Objects (FDO; see Islam et al. 2020) for the heterogeneous data. The harmonization of events and the abstraction layer together provide a solid foundation for data aggregation and interoperability. The Digital Objects are serialized as JSON and DiSSCo promotes the use of open standards and open software. Therefore, we suggest API guidelines derived from the existing specifications of JSON:API, OpenAPI and CloudEvents.