speciesLink infoXY

A simple tool that identifies geographic coordinates.

Description

This tool was developed by CRIA with the aim of helping biological collections in identifying geographic coordinates.

infoXY accepts geographic coordinates and returns information such as the name of the country, state or administrative region. 1

infoXY accepts data as longitude and latitude entered into a web-based text-box. The results area shown on a MapServer map of the world, in an HTML table and as an Excel file.

Function

• Data cleaning
  • Data validating – geography
• Visualisation tools
  • Maps
• User interface
  • Personal or institutional use
  • Raw data or visual presentation

Why use this tool?

• To give a location to a latitude and longitude reference.
• This could be used as a means by which the ALA could introduce uncertainty to sensitive information

 Who will use this tool?

• Data capture
  • Curators – specimens
• Data providers
  • Institutions
• Data users
  • General public
• ALA infrastructure
• No special skills required

 How will the tool be used?

• Input data format is comma separated ID, longitude, latitude
• Output data is HTML, xls, and displayed on a MapServer map
• Desktop application
• User input required
• Batch job can accept many coordinates at one time
• This tool could be modified to include Australian localities
• infoXY could also be used as a “de-sensitive” or dithering tool (see comment below)
• Data Cleaning includes/links to this tool 3

 Where in the data chain could this tool be used?

• Data source
• ALA central
• User’s machine

 When could this tool be used?

• Before data is made available to ALA
• While data is stored with ALA
• As a post process, after data is with the user

Availability

• infoXY: http://splink.cria.org.br/infoxy?criaLANG=en
• CRIA - Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental: http://splink.cria.org.br
• Licence: negotiate with CRIA to modify and use this tool locally

Comments

For Australia, the results of a search returns the relevant state or territory. This uncertainty may be too vague. infoXY should be modified to include a finer grain locality dataset.

In order to dither the accurate latitude/longitude of sensitive data, a modified form of infoXY could be used. By including local government areas, or perhaps state geo-regions4 (such as Central Tablelands, North Kennedy, etc) in the location database, an accurate geographic coordinate could be de-identified to a less accurate, but relevant geographic area.