Aims

BIODAT has been developed to increase the accessibility and utilisation of taxonomic material in existing collections both at the species- and at the specimen level.

The overall efficiency of electronic databasing is, however, based on two needs. Besides a suitable software, flexible collection management should ensure that the quality of data-input is as high as possible and should avoid redundancy in workflow processes.

The daily practise of data capture in our own collections is based on a lockstep-programme: The primary data capture concerning systematic information is followed by a secondary data capture completing all the information which is normally hidden in collections (e.g. location/site, collector, collecting date etc.). Since each step of the data capture is clearly separated from the next everyone involved in this work can clearly see his/her own area of responsibility and can see the progress of their work.