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1. Overview of MIDS
This is a draft version
The Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen (MIDS) specification defines the information elements expected to be present when publishing digitized specimen information at various levels of digitization. Digital Specimens are online digital representations of their physical counterparts in natural science collections. The definition of digitization used here is the process of making physical objects digitally available. Levels of digitization represent a simple categorization of the type and depth of digitization achieved by different approaches.
Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen (MIDS) specifies the information elements expected to be present when providing access to specimens within a digital framework. Digital Specimens are online digital representations of their physical counterparts in natural science collections. The definition of digitization used here is making physical objects digitally available in terms of data and/or media. Several 'levels of digitization' (0-3) represent a simple categorization of the type and depth of digitization achieved by heterogeneous approaches to digitization. This document defines and describes all MIDS Levels (0, 1, 2 and 3).
- To assist in the prioritisation of data to be published to make digital specimen information useful for multiple purposes of research, teaching and learning, etc.;
- To provide a metric for the digitisation of collections;
- Outcomes of these aims include:
- To improve the quality of published data by providing recommendations to collection managers about relevant data standards and ontologies;
- To support and contribute towards assessments of fitness for purpose of data (suitability) for feeding specific types of data processing pipelines;
- To assist researchers to know what information to include in their publications about specimens they have used in their research, and,
- To enable efficient querying, aggregation and self-contained data processing by computing systems (machine-actionability, de Smedt 2020) based on provision of rich contextual (meta)data in compliance with the FAIR principles (Wilkinson 2016).
MIDS defines what information about a specimen should be available but it does not attach specific value to that information because attaching value depends both upon the information itself and the purpose to which that is put.
The levels of digitisation and their expected information content defined here, and named as Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen (MIDS) are based on major research and curation requirements put forward by national museums and herbaria.
This document is intended primarily for those who are responsible for digitising and sharing data publicly (publishing data) about natural science specimens. It can also be useful to those who are developing applications, tools and workflows related to digitisation, comparing and evaluating digitisation projects, and for those reporting to collection management personnel, and funding agencies. Whilst it may be possible to use the specification for occurrence information that are not physical specimens, it has not been designed for this wider use.
The Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen (MIDS) framework offers a clear way to assess and standardise the degree of digitisation of specimen data across collections. This ensures consistent data capture and improves its usability for scientific research. There are four progressive levels (0-3), each building on the previous one:
MIDS Level 0 (Bare):
A minimal record that links a specimen to an identifier (e.g., a register number or barcode). It confirms the specimen's existence but includes no detailed information, laying the groundwork for further digitisation.
MIDS Level 1 (Basic):
Adds basic taxonomic details (e.g., species name) and physical information about the specimen. This allows for basic searchability and gives a simple representation of the collection for internal and external users.
MIDS Level 2 (Regular):
Expands on Level 1 with more detailed data, such as geographic and temporal information, collection event details, and multimedia like images. This level supports more thorough scientific research.
MIDS Level 3 (Extended):
The most detailed level, linking the specimen to external datasets through persistent identifiers (e.g., Publication DOIs). This significantly boosts research potential by connecting the specimen to specialised data across different platforms.