# Analyzing/mining specimen data for novel applications

**URL:** <https://discourse.gbif.org/t/analyzing-mining-specimen-data-for-novel-applications/2423>\
**Category:** Digital/Extended Specimen\
**Created:** [January 30, 2021, 5:01pm UTC](https://discourse.gbif.org/t/analyzing-mining-specimen-data-for-novel-applications/2423 "2021-01-30T17:01:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 9

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**Author:** ![jegelewicz](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/gbif1/user_avatar/discourse.gbif.org/jegelewicz/32/238_2.png) [@jegelewicz](https://discourse.gbif.org/u/jegelewicz)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2021, 6:01pm UTC](https://discourse.gbif.org/t/analyzing-mining-specimen-data-for-novel-applications/2423/9 "2021-02-16T18:01:26Z")

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> [@JoeMiller](#):
>
> What assumptions are we making when designing databases and data standards for a global community? How do we thoughtfully promote, enhance and implement improvements from new users?

One assumption is that all collections staff are concerned about their data and/or have appropriate technology skills.

These are generally the same people who on any given day are skinning a bird, checking a dermestid colony, performing integrated pest management, hunting down specimens for a loan or a borrower to get specimens back, supervising volunteers, interns and if they are lucky an actual paid assistant. Perhaps they learned Python or R while in school, but perhaps those languages weren’t even in use when they were in school. Yet it does seem that we expect that collections staff can manage data in the ways that often are discussed at the level of aggregators and that they all understand the technology and terms being used by the biodiversity data community.

This feeds into:

> [@JoeMiller](#):
>
> How do we avoid losing sight of basic efforts (e.g., taxonomic research) that have to underpin using these data for novel applications?

How do we avoid losing sight of the other important tasks that collections staff do? Maintenance of the physical specimens (which underpin the data) should be part of the puzzle.

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.gbif.org/t/analyzing-mining-specimen-data-for-novel-applications/2423)._