TFBIS Programme – The Terrestrial Freshwater Biodiversity Information System Programme which is funded by the Government to help to achieve the goals of the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy through facilitating and funding data management systems and processes. It is administered by the Department of Conservation.

TFBIS Contract 214 – the contract between TFBIS and Landcare Research to run the first year (and possible second and third years) of the project to develop NZOR

Stakeholder – A person or group with an interest in NZOR.  This will include data providers, users and funders.

Data provider – An individual or organisation who provides nomenclatural, taxonomic and biostatus data (and associated metadata) to NZOR

End user – An individual or organisation who uses NZOR to obtain data on organism names

Contractor – a person(s) or organisation that has received funding to develop, enhance or maintain NZOR

Project Leader – the leader of any contracted project that is active in the development, enhancement or maintenance of the NZOR platform

Technical Leader – the technical leader of any contracted project that is active in the development enhancement or maintenance of the NZOR platform

Information system – a computer system including descriptive schema, such as database designs, XML schema and software architecture.

Provider Data – nomenclatural, taxonomic and biostatus data (and associated metadata) that are made available to NZOR by participating agencies. Any data generated by end user agencies and managed within the NZOR platform

NZOR Data – data generated within or by the NZOR platform (for example, consensus records, statistical analyses, and taxonomic management hierarchies)

NZOR Platform – the information systems which receives Provider Data and delivers NZOR.

Metadata – documentation that describes the data and information.

Data Provision and Use Agreement – a single document establishing an agreement between NZOR and a data provider and/or data consumer, establishing the terms, conditions, responsibilities and expectations regarding limitation of liability, intellectual property rights, standards, quality, and service levels.

Creative Commons – aims to establish a fair middle way between extremes of copyright control and the uncontrolled uses of intellectual property.  It provides a range of copyright licences, available to the public, which allow those owning or creating intellectual property – including organisations and individuals – to mark their work with the freedoms they want it to carry.

International Initiatives:

• ITIS - Integrated Taxonomic Information System (www.itis.gov)
• EOL - Encyclopedia of Life (www.eol.org)
• GBIF - Global Biodiversity Information Facility – (www.gbif.org)
• ECAT - The electronic catalogue of names of known organisms, part of the GBIF programme (www.gbif.org/informatics/name-services/)
• GNA - Global Names Architecture, an effort to coordinate multiple interests in developing common solutions for creating a complete and integrated taxonomic framework for all names (www.gbif.org/informatics/name-services/global-names-architecture/)
• TDWG - Taxonomic Databases Working Group, now known as Biodiversity Information Standards, an organisation focused on the development of standards for the exchange of biological/biodiversity data (www.tdwg.org)
  
• eBiosphere - An International Conference on Biodiversity Informatics (www.e-biosphere09.org)
• 4D4Life - Distributed Dynamic Diversity Databases for Life, An EU Framework 7 project (www.4d4life.eu)
• ALA - The Atlas of Living Australia, a project to develop a biodiversity data management system which will link Australia’s biological knowledge with its scientific and agricultural reference collections and other custodians of biological information. (www.ala.org.au)
  
• APNI - Australian Plant Name Index (www.anbg.gov.au/apni/)