The NCMNS API Platform was a multi-functional data publishing platform. The overarching goal of the platform was to provide a blueprint for the construction of RESTful APIs to support scientific research, primarily in the fields of biodiversity informatics, biodiversity, geology, and paleontology.
The Online Collections web application, project name Aves, is a search and data-sharing platform for biological, geological, and paleontological collections. The application was built using the Laravel and Vue.js frameworks. Bootstrap takes care of the responsive behavior, vivus.js for SVG animations, and jQuery Datatables for the display and interactivity of search results. Several collections included a web map for georeferenced specimens using Leaflet and custom GeoJSON API endpoints. The system even includes a simple collections management tool with features that include storage and photo management.
The Online Collections portal belonged to the internal collections interconnected network, a set of web applications that communicated with one another through custom APIs. Here, media in the form of 3-D models, images, and scans of primary sources (e.g., ledgers, labels, and collection cards) associated with specimens were provided by the Collections Asset Manager (CAMS). Spatial datasets, controlled vocabularies, collections metrics are provided dynamically by a Data Publishing Platform.
The Collections Asset Management System (CAMS) is a digital asset management system that is specifically designed to support natural history collections. Asset capture, automatic metadata extraction, image viewing and modification, custom categorization, and support for a wide variety of file types are among the platform’s features. A sophisticated web interface and API were used to share, search, and download assets.
