Data Model

The basic data model employed by the database is designed to avoid the most vexing, commonly encountered data storage deficiencies.

data subjects ITF format experience In Use diagrams

Key Data Subjects

Version 1

Acquisitions - Plant material arrivals
- Acquistion donors - Information about financial donors contributing to a specific plant material acquistion
- Origin - Information about origin of materials. Geographic region, elevation, map name, collector name, collector id number, etc.
Accession - Formal placement of acquired plant materials into the formal collection of the garden
Specimens - Each individually tracked plant or group of plants in the formal collection of the garden
- Actions - Actions taken towards an individual specimen. Might include measurement, planting, pruning, etc
- Action crew members - Crew memberss participating in an action, and the role played by those persons
- Locations - Locations where an individual specimen has been placed
Donors - A person or organization providing either plant materials or funding for a plant acquisition
Names - A name record defines a name that may be assigned to accessioned plant materials. The name may include components for family, genus, species, variety, subspecies, verhacular name, nothotaxon, etc.
Name Components - A name component is a word or phrase that might be used as part of a full plant name. For instance Pinus, Fabaceae, contorta, contorta x pubescens, etc
Surveys - A survey record represents a systematic examination of specimens in formal garden holdings. Records of actions and/or measurements may be linked to a specific survey record, and a record of which specific survey locations in the garden were included can also be maintained

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ITF Format

Internal database structures are designed to store information to support the International Data Transfer version2 (ITF2)standards used by many botanic gardens and arboretums. In particular, plant taxon names are constructed to coordinate with ITF2.

Automation to fully support transfer to/from external files using ITF format will be developed in the near future.

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Experiences in Use

In actual use, we have found the data model to be quite comprehensive. Client requests for new data storage or reporting capacities almost never require data model changes. Typically, the most difficult work required in response is the construction of appropriate SQL statements for withdrawing data from already-existing data structures.

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Entity-relationship Diagrams

Version 1 Entity-Relationship Diagrams

This implementation provides an abridged version of the full data model, as applied during implementation for the first client - a nonprofit land trust.

Main Model: Entities and relationships without attributes represented (PNG file, 67Kb)

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Last modified: 13:32:01 23-Jan-2009