Quality control review

QC verifies extracted candidates before they enter the main DwC+ABCD store. Review work occurs on an exported database so decisions remain isolated from production.

Review cycle

1. Export candidates to a standalone bundle with export_review.py.
2. Review the bundle outside the main store using interactive or spreadsheet workflows. See review workflow for details.
3. Import approved selections back into the working database with import_review.py before ingesting them into the central store.

Keep the review database separate from the primary DwC+ABCD database at all times.

Interactive review

During the QC phase, confirm OCR candidates alongside the source image.

python review.py --tui path/to/candidates.db specimen.jpg

Use the arrow keys to highlight a candidate and press Enter to confirm. The chosen value is persisted through io_utils.candidates.record_decision. If the terminal cannot display images, a text placeholder is shown instead.

GBIF lookups

When enabled, the pipeline verifies taxonomy and locality with the GBIF API after mapping OCR output to Darwin Core. Any fields added by GBIF are recorded in the event log and written to the CSV output. Mismatches update the flags column so reviewers can spot corrections.

Toggle these checks and override API endpoints in the [qc.gbif] section of config.toml:

[qc.gbif]
enabled = true
species_match_endpoint = "https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/match"
reverse_geocode_endpoint = "https://api.gbif.org/v1/geocode/reverse"

See the configuration guide for details on these settings.

[AAFC]: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada [GBIF]: Global Biodiversity Information Facility [DwC]: Darwin Core [OCR]: Optical Character Recognition [API]: Application Programming Interface [CSV]: Comma-Separated Values [IPT]: Integrated Publishing Toolkit [TDWG]: Taxonomic Databases Working Group