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<h1 align="center"><font color="#be8028">Pre-announcement EPIC PID User Forum
2011</font></h1>
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<td class="bodycell" valign="top">On April 12 and 13, 2011, the
second <a href="http://www.pidconsortium.eu/">EPIC</a> User Forum will
be held
at
SARA on <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Science+Park+121,+Amsterdam,+Nederland&sll=52.356671,4.952501&sspn=0.0111,0.033023&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Science+Park+121,+Middenmeer,+Amsterdam,+Noord-Holland,+The+Netherlands&z=16">Science
Park
Amsterdam</a>. EPIC is an abbreviation of European
Persistent Identifier Consortium. The first forum took place on April
19 and 20, 2009 in Göttingen, Germany. EPIC is a joint venture of <a href="http://www.csc.fi/">CSC</a> –
IT Center for Science Ltd. (Helsinki, Finland), <a href="http://www.gwdg.de/">GWDG</a> – Gesellschaft für
Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH
Göttingen, and <a href="http://www.sara.nl/">SARA</a> Computing
and Networking
Services.<br><p><b>Aim of the EPIC User Forum</b><br>
The consortium aims to offer European scientists a Persistent
Identifier (PID) infrastructure. Persistent Identifiers are unique
markers, which can be used to identify digital documents (e.g. text
files, web pages, photographs, films, sound files), or specific objects
(e.g. paintings, sculptures), so that they can always be traced, even
if they have been moved to a different location, or if their URL has
changed. It is important that the solution is sustainable over time
(persistent). The international collaboration of various institutes in
EPIC also stands for robustness in organizational terms, since the user
of this service is not dependent on one organization.<br>
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<b>Program</b><br>
A program committee is busy preparing the EPIC User Forum 2011, which
will consist of two parts: a technical part and a part on policy
development. The technical program will focus among others on:<br>
<ul style="margin-top: 0pt;" type="square">
<li>Providing information on PID’s</li>
<li>Explaining current and future services of EPIC</li>
<li>Identifying the needs and demands of existing and future
users</li>
</ul>
Policy issues, financing, etc. will be discussed as well during this
forum.<br>
<br>
Given the international character, the event will be in English.<br>
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<b>Registration</b><br>
You will receive notice as soon as the program has been finalized and the event
is open for registration. Until then, please contact <a href="mailto:epic@sara.nl?subject=EPIC%20User%20Forum%202011">epic@sara.nl</a>.<br>
Participation is free.<br>
<br>
If you know people who might be interested in attending the EPIC 2011
User Forum, please forward this message to them.<br>
<br>
I look forward to welcoming you at this evert! Kind regards,<br>
<br>
Pieter van Beek <a href="mailto:pieterb@sara.nl?subject=EPIC+User+Forum+2011"><pieterb@sara.nl></a><br>
SARA Computing and Networking<br>
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