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<div dir="ltr"><font face="Tahoma" color="#000000" size="2">Hello fellow TAGers,</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2"></font> </div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">I like the sound of Donald's mention of a "hackathon". If anyone else is keen for such a thing at TDWG 2009, then let me know.</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2"></font> </div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">Some ideas that we could work on:</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">- Tapir tools, services, enhancements</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">- LSID tools, services, enhancements</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">- LSID vocabulary work - elaboration of the vocabs, tools for working with the vocabs, ?</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">- mash ups</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">- semantic web integration with tdwg standards/tools</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2"></font> </div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">Also had a few thoughts about how TAG ought to influence the the other sub groups and their discussions.</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2"></font> </div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">A snippet from an email to Doanld...</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2"></font> </div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">"<font face="Tahoma" size="2">I do like the idea of concentrating more on the developing standards etc.
</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="Tahoma" size="2">I feel we will have to be careful though not to end up with different groups heading different directions, or re-inventing wheels, because they are in separate discussions/sub groups. One of the main concerns here
is subgroups creating models for data types that have been done elsewhere - ie the "reuse" of existing schemas issue. I do have a cunning plan though that may help (so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel :)). As this "reuse" issue is
really a major concern of the TAG group, we could have members of the TAG group spreading themselves through the different discussion, making sure they are heading the same direction as other groups and reusing models, etc, where appropriate. It may help
to have a short TAG "plan of attack" meeting before the main meeting to work out strategies for this??"</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma"></font> </div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma">Any thoughts?</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma"></font> </div>
</font>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2">Kevin</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="tahoma" size="2"></font> </div>
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<hr tabindex="-1">
<font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b> tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Donald.Hobern@csiro.au [Donald.Hobern@csiro.au]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, 13 February 2009 5:27 p.m.<br>
<b>To:</b> tdwg@lists.tdwg.org<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [tdwg] TDWG in 2009<br>
</font><br>
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Dear TDWG Members and Friends,</span></p>
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">TDWG 2009 will be help in Montpellier France from November 9-13. I thought I would take this opportunity to outline the activities I see as important for TDWG this year leading up to the conference
this November. There are many important things for us to be doing in the lead up to the meeting.</span></p>
<p><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Consolidation of past work</span></strong>
</p>
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">We have made much progress over the last few years in reworking our standards for greater interoperability. The LSID work and the associated LSID vocabularies have been a major part of this.
These changes make it much easier to reuse TDWG standards with different technologies, to embed TDWG data elements in other structures, and to map other data formats into forms which can be interpreted as TDWG-compliant data. However this work is still incomplete.
We need to formalise the vocabularies as an agreed high-level ontology or data model to support cross-project data integration. Many of our projects are awaiting a clear lead in this area. Please contact me if you are interested in leading some of this work
or contributing to the discussion.</span></p>
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">One obvious example of the importance of this work comes from Annie Simpson's comments during her presentation in Perth. It should not be difficult<font color="#000000"><span style="COLOR: #1f497d">
</span>for a group like GISIN to adopt TDWG standards and be able quickly to build a network to share data using those standards. I reiterate the challenge for us to solve this problem this year, using GISIN's requirements as a<span class="669132404-13022009">
benchmark.</span></font></span></p>
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><font color="#000000">It is encouraging to see that NCD nears the end of its public review and that TAPIR has just been submitted to the
TDWG standards track. It would appear that the submission of Darwin Core is not far off either. Please help to ensure that we end up with effective standards that can be easily adopted by a wide audience.
</font></font></font></span></p>
<p><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">e-Biosphere 2009</span></strong></p>
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">The e-Biosphere 2009 conference (</span><a title="http://www.e-biosphere09.org/" href="http://www.e-biosphere09.org/" target="_blank"><span title="http://www.e-biosphere09.org/" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">http://www.e-biosphere09.org/</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">)
will take place in London in June. This goals of this conference are to:</span></p>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Present and discuss the extraordinary progress made in Biodiversity Informatics over the past decade,</span>
</li><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Provide participants with demonstrations of current capabilities in this field, and</span>
</li><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Bring stakeholders together to create a roadmap for the next decade.</span>
</li></ul>
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">The main meeting (1-3 June) has a programme of invited speakers who will provide an overview of what is happening in biodiversity informatics and promote a vision for the importance of this
work. These sessions will address the first and second of the goals above. At the end of the week, there will be a smaller two-day workshop with representatives from a range of biodiversity informatics projects discussing synergies and efficient collaboration
(the third goal).</span></p>
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">e-Biosphere is significant to TDWG for several reasons:</span></p>
<ol type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">The opening session on 2 June will present the benefits of data standards and integration, and we expect that many of the other sessions will directly or indirectly highlight<span class="669132404-13022009">
TDWG </span>work. We are also organising a booth to publicise the work of TDWG and hope that this will be an opportunity to demonstrate the value of our role to a wider audience.</span>
</li><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">The e-Biosphere organisers have established an "Online Conference Community" (<a title="http://forum.e-biosphere09.org/" href="http://forum.e-biosphere09.org/" target="_blank">http://forum.e-biosphere09.org/</a>)
to engage the wider community in pre-conference discussions. One of the categories (to be added soon) will be on the role of standards and tools in biodiversity informatics. We encourage TDWG members to contribute to this and to the other conference discussions.</span>
</li><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">TDWG will be represented in the roadmap discussions on 4-5 June. We trust that this session will help us all to clarify priorities for the next few years and will feed into
discussions at TDWG 2009 and beyond.</span> </li></ol>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">TDWG 2009</span></strong></p>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">In recent years TDWG conferences have moved away from their earlier format, with significant emphasis on working group meetings, to become more of a reporting conference on
the activities of TDWG-related projects. This has had some benefits, but has also in some ways weakened the organisation by reducing our focus on the core activity of developing and promoting standards. The vitality of our working groups in large measure
depends on the conference providing a focus for their activity.</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">For this reason, TDWG 2009 will be structured differently. Monday and Friday of the conference have been reserved for plenary sessions, but for the rest of the conference
we plan to run three parallel (and, I hope, intersecting) streams of activities. One of these will be on the use of biodiversity informatics to support agriculture and crop diversity. Another stream will be for TDWG to initiate activity in response to the
roadmap developed at e-Biosphere 2009. The third stream is still be be selected. Each stream will include a range of activities (e.g. symposia, seminars, task group sessions, hackathons) planned to address key issues and to result in real deliverables to
progress biodiversity informatics in the area.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">We are establishing a Program Committee to plan the conference in detail and will keep you informed of progress.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Best wishes,</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Donald</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Donald Hobern, Director, Atlas of Living Australia</span><span style="COLOR: navy"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">CSIRO Entomology, GPO Box 1700, Canberra, ACT 2601</span><span style="COLOR: navy"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="FR" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Phone: (02) 62464352 Mobile: 0437990208
</span><span lang="FR" style="COLOR: navy"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="FR" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Email:
</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><a title="mailto:Donald.Hobern@csiro.au" href="mailto:Donald.Hobern@csiro.au"><span lang="FR"><span title="mailto:Donald.Hobern@csiro.au">Donald.Hobern@csiro.au</span></span></a></span><span lang="FR" style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Web:
<a title="http://www.ala.org.au/" href="http://www.ala.org.au/" target="_blank">http://www.ala.org.au/</a>
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