August 2006 - tdwg - lists.tdwg.org

LATEST UPDATE: Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) Annual Meeting 2006 - Abstracts and Registration
by Adrian Rissone 30 Aug '06

30 Aug '06

This message contains NEW time-critical information requiring immediate action. Please read it now. You are receiving this message because you have registered for TDWG 2006, expressed interest in attending the Meeting, or have attended previous TDWG meetings. If you are receiving this message in error, or do not wish to be contacted in the future, please accept our apologies for intruding and send a request to be removed from future mailings to A.Rissone(a)nhm.ac.uk with Subject line "TDWG Direct Mail Removal Request". Annual Meeting and Symposium of the Taxonomic Databases Working Group Missouri Botanical Garden 15 - 22 October 2006 http://tdwg2006.tdwg.org/ VISA TO ENTER THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA We have been reminded that the process of obtaining a visa to enter the USA can be long for visitors from some countries. If you need a visa please ensure that you apply immediately. REGISTRATION AND HOTEL REDUCED RATES ENDING SOON! A late registration penalty fee of 50 $US will apply after 13 September 2006. The deadline for hotel discount is 13 September 2006. A number of registered delegates have indicated their intention to use the Recommended Hotel but have not yet made their hotel booking. Please do so as soon as possible. You MUST do so by 13 September to receive the discounted rate. You are not required to pay up front (but you must guarantee the booking with a credit card) and can cancel if necessary without penalty up to 15:00 local time on the day before you booked to arrive. The hotel booking URL is now being given on your Meeting registration confirmation e-mail. If you have an older version of the confirmation please contact me for the URL. ABSTRACTS FOR PRESENTATIONS The official deadline for Abstracts has been extended to 23:59 GMT on Saturday 2 September. THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER EXTENSION. PLEASE see the Abstracts Page for details and Instructions for Authors. Abstracts MUST be submitted in the required format. A number of abstracts have been received where the author has clearly not read the Instructions! In particular, please ensure the following: Be sure to state which Meeting Theme to which you think your Abstract is relevant. Be sure to suggest a Reviewer and their contact information. Be sure to add ALL co-authors with appropriate full details at the time of submitting the abstract into the system. If you wish to acknowledge a supporting agency, also add this as an acknowledgement in the Supporting Agency field when adding your abstract into the system. We have been asked why it is so important to submit abstracts correctly and why they will be peer reviewed. The reason is simple - the Abstracts will be published and correct presentation is seen as important in our current drive to make the TDWG a high profile, prestigious body. Please accept our apologies for cross-posting if you receive this message more than once. Regards, Adrian Rissone

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Guide to Best Practices for Georeferencing
by list.tdwg＠achapman.org 25 Aug '06

25 Aug '06

Apologies for cross-postings A Guide to Best Practices for Georeferencing has just been published on the GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) website. It can be downloaded from http://www.gbif.org/prog/digit/Georeferencing This publication is one of the outputs from the BioGeomancer project and discusses Best Practices for Georeferencing biological species (specimen and observational) data. The publication presents examples of how to georeference a wide range of different location types, and provides information and examples on how to determine the extent and maximum uncertainty distance for locations based on the information provided. A number of projects have been working for many years on the development of guidelines and tools for improving the georeferencing of primary biodiversity data. This document largely draws on those initiatives and attempts to bring the results of all this previous work into one comprehensive best practices document. It also draws upon new technologies and ideas developed through the current BioGeomancer project and existing projects such as MaNIS, HerpNet, MaPSTeDI, GEOLocate, INRAM, CRIA, ERIN and BioGeoMancer Classic. It is hoped that collections institutions, museums, herbaria and others, will adopt these guidelines to achieve consistency across the world in how locality data are georeferenced and documented, especially with regard to the recording of uncertainty. Citation information: Chapman, A.D. and J. Wieczorek (eds). 2006. Guide to Best Practices for Georeferencing. Copenhagen: Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Contributing authors: J.Wieczorek, R.Guralnick, A.Chapman, C.Frazier, N.Rios, R.Beaman, Q.Guo. Copyright © 2006 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. The authors would appreciate any corrections or comments for future editions. regards Arthur D. Chapman Toowoomba, Australia

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URGENT UPDATE: Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) Annual Meeting 2006 - Reminder of late registration penalties
by Adrian Rissone 23 Aug '06

23 Aug '06

This message contains time-critical information requiring immediate action. Please read it now. You are receiving this message because you have registered for TDWG 2006, expressed interest in attending the Meeting, or have attended previous TDWG meetings. If you are receiving this message in error, or do not wish to be contacted in the future, please accept our apologies for intruding and send a request to be removed from future mailings to A.Rissone(a)nhm.ac.uk with Subject line "TDWG Direct Mail Removal Request". The 2006 Annual Meeting and Symposium of the Taxonomic Databases Working Group will be held at the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, from 15 - 22 October 2006. The meeting web site can be accessed here: http://tdwg2006.tdwg.org/ Registration is open now. There is an active link on the Registration Page to the RegOnline system which is handling registration for the meeting and has further links to discount booking at the recommended hotel and discount car rental. A PLEA FROM THE ORGANISERS From previous experience we know that delegates are slow to register and make hotel bookings. Anyone who attended the meeting in St. Petersburg in 2005 will know the possible consequences of late hotel bookings and late visa applications! Late registration is very disruptive to the smooth running of the meeting, making it difficult to plan meeting rooms, catering and transport. Late hotel bookings cause problems for the recommended hotel and may cost the TDWG money if we do not fulfill our advance booking commitment. This is a strong plea from the Meeting Organisers for ALL delegates to register and book your hotel room immediately. If you require help or further information please contact me without delay. PLEASE NOTE A late registration penalty fee of 50 $US will apply after 13 September 2006. The deadline for hotel discount is 13 September 2006. ABSTRACTS FOR PRESENTATIONS Abstracts for presentations by delegates were invited in June. Please see the Abstracts Page for details and Instructions for Authors. Abstracts MUST be submitted in the required format. The official deadline for Abstracts was 20 August 2006. This has been extended to 23:59 GMT on Saturday 2 September. There will be no further extension. Please accept our apologies for cross-posting if you receive this message more than once. Regards, Adrian Rissone

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Proposals for a new TDWG Constitution and Standards Development Process
by Blum, Stan 16 Aug '06

16 Aug '06

TDWG members: I am pleased to announce the availability of two documents for your review and consideration for adoption as this year's annual meeting: 1) a revised TDWG Constitution http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/pub/Process/WebHome/TDWG_Constitution_2006-08-16… df and 2) a revised set of TDWG By-Laws (Standards Development Process) http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/pub/Process/WebHome/TDWG_Process_2006-08-16.pdf Both documents were developed by the Process subgroup and are the result of many hours of deliberation. The new Process, in particular, is a critical element in improving TDWG's social infrastructure for biodiversity information sharing. If you have any questions or comments about these proposal please: 1) email me directly, or 2) join the Process subgroup's mailing list (tdwg-process(a)lists.tdwg.org) and post your question there, or 3) join the TDWG wiki (http://wiki.tdwg.org) and post your question there. The TDWG Executive Committee will announce the specific voting procedures in the coming weeks before the meeting. What follows below are explanations of how the proposed Constitution differs from the earlier Constitution, and how the revised process differs from the existing process. First, wherever we (the Process subgroup and primary officers) had NOT reached a consensus, we have reverted (substantially) to the existing Constitution. The most significant cases in this category were: the retention of "Regional Secretaries" as officers (with a slight modification of responsibilities), and the retention of only two co-opted Executive Committee members (to be selected by the elected committee members). Second, we have added provisions to make it explicit that the Executive Committee has the power to appoint other individuals or groups to do specific work. Through this general provision, the Executive Committee will have the ability to approve interest and task group charters, as well as appoint web masters, standards editors, or fill any other roles as needed. Third, we have removed the By-laws from the Constitution. It was not clear earlier whether the by-laws were part of the constitution, or just presented there for convenience. In the new draft, the rules for establishing and changing the by-laws is covered, but the by-laws will be a separate document. Fourth, language has been edited throughout to remove ambiguity, establish consistency, improve readability, and remove unnecessary words. The list below highlights the changes that are new and I hope acceptable based on our discussions over the last year, including a meeting in Madrid in early June. Article 1: we have rephrased the purpose as follows: "...to establish international collaboration among the creators, managers and users of biodiversity information..." I think this is more precise as well as more inclusive than "biological database projects" or "biological information repositories". We used the term biodiversity rather than biological because that term accurately circumscribes our special niche. Article 1.c: We have removed the reference to the newsletter as a kind of publication. Article 5 (Executive Committee): changed the formatting to a list; added item d. to the list of responsibilities/powers as follows: "d. may appoint an individual or group of individuals to perform specific work or an ongoing function for TDWG;" Under item "j.", I removed the qualifier "electronically" from the phrase. I don't think it's necessary to say how (what technologies should be used) the membership should be kept informed. Article 6 (Officers). We changed the name from Chairman to Chair. That's generally done in the US now to remove gender bias. (Chairperson is also used, but I think it's more awkward.) Also removed "to him" from "enacts such functions as are assigned >to him< by the Executive Committee." We restored the Regional Secretaries as members of the Executive Committee because we hadn't reached a consensus about how to replace them. The Executive Committee will have greater power and therefore greater responsibility to represent the interests of the membership under the new Process. That means they will have a representative, "steering committee"-type of role in more decisions, and that alone is justification for keeping broad representation on the Executive. We talked a lot in Madrid and over email about people not having specific roles, but given this greater emphasis on the steering function, one does not have to be doing work for TDWG (e.g., as an editor or secretary) to represent a constituency on the Executive. There is also a clear sensitivity to concentrating too much power in the three primary Executive Officers. So the composition of the executive will remain unchanged, except that we have removed mention of the newsletter and standards editors. These can be appointed by the Executive, they just won't be on the Executive. Finally, I have fleshed out the language of Article 10 (Voting), such that we now have broad consensus as an explicit goal, and the Executive is given the operational responsibility of determining when we have a case where a consensus cannot be reached, but a decision must be taken (i.e., a preferable alternative cannot be devised). ----- The TDWG Process for Standards Development is also known as the TDWG By-Laws. The previous by-laws were only a couple paragraphs long; while this version is three and half pages. The proposed process differs in several important ways from the existing one. The new process calls for interest groups to provide a forum for general discussions in an area, and task groups (created within interest groups) to do specific work. Both interest groups and task groups are required to have published charters, which describe the group's purpose and operation. Interest groups and task groups are also required to submit (and publish) annual reports to ensure that progress is made and results are communicated to the membership. The review process itself also differs from the current one in that it calls for the Executive Committee to appoint a review manager, who will first seek independent expert reviews (much like we would do with a scientific paper), and then issue a public request for comment. The Executive Committee is empowered to judge the results of these reviews and may either advance the standard along the track or return the draft to the task group for revision. The members do not need to vote on a standard (they just need to comment). Respectfully, Stanley D. Blum Convener, Process Subgroup

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