Target aggregator's resolvable name ID
Contents
Purpose
What can be achieved by matching and storing an aggregator name ID in the local database?
Having revised and matched the names and as a result incorporating a NAME ID establishes an unequivocal link between the local name and the name in the aggregator treatment. This enables direct linking to a name and its (potentially changing) treatment (but without the ambiguity introduced by a search on the canonical name string). The link could also be shown on the local website, enabling its users to do the same.
A further step, not yet realized by target aggregators, is to offer a "taxon concept subscription" that notifies users about changes in the circumscription of taxa on the aggregator's side.
Resolvable IDs also open possibilities for semantic linking and searching in various contexts.
The simple lookup could of course also be done by the "canonical name" string (i.e. name without authors and/or year), but this does not really deal with homonyms and orthographic variants, so a once done revision needs to be repeated on the user's side because the results may be ambiguous. Moreover, the link may simply not work if the aggregator corrects errors in the orthography.
Aggregator IDs
We have looked at the handling and resolution of IDs in the following target aggregators. [under construction]
