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TDWG2016 Program PDF & moderators
by Kampmeier, Gail E 07 Nov '16

07 Nov '16

A full program PDF has now been posted (latest 6 Nov 2016) for TDWG2016 in Costa Rica https://mbgserv18.mobot.org/ocs/index.php/tdwg/tdwg2016/schedConf/program (latest printable program updates will always be available at this link). We are searching for non-student moderators for three of the contributed paper sessions, C02 (Thursday morning, Inventories), C04 (Friday morning; Catalogs, Checklists, Collections) and C05 (Friday morning; Data Gaps, Trust, Acquisition, Access). Moderators are responsible for keeping the sessions on time. Symposium and workshop organizers will be responsible for this in their own sessions. This year all talks in parallel sessions are allowed 15 minutes, which includes changing of speakers and questions. Speakers are asked to be mindful of these constraints. If you are attending TDWG 2016 and interested in being added to the next version of the program as a moderator, please email me as soon as possible, for which session you are interested in moderating. Hasta pronto en Costa Rica! Gail Gail Kampmeier Co-Program Chair, TDWG 2016

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sample Darwin Core Archives of various flavors
by Steve Baskauf 06 Nov '16

06 Nov '16

I have been playing around with turning Darwin Core Archives into RDF [1] and would like to extend my experiments to attempting to integrate data from archives that have very different core files. I have played with the dwcaMolluscsAndorra.zip Occurrence archive mentioned in Annex 3 of the DwC-A How-To Guide [2], but the Whales-DWC-A.zip file isn't available any more (I guess because of the demise of Google Code). A little bit of Google searching failed to turn up additional obvious example files. If anyone would be interested in making DwC-A archives available to me, I'd appreciate it. I'm particularly interested in archives that have cores other than Occurrence (although an Occurrence archive that has more complex data, including extensions, than the mollusc example would be welcome). If there are any MaterialSample or Event core arcives, that would be particularly interesting. Preferably, I'd like to have access to archives that contain publicly available data, since I'm likely to blog about the outcome and potentially use the data in examples. If there are publicly available archives downloadable via a URL, you can reply to the list - otherwise let me know how I could access your example. Thanks in advance for your help! Steve Baskauf [1] http://baskauf.blogspot.com/2016/10/guid-o-matic-meets-darwin-core-archives… [2] http://www.gbif.org/resource/80636 -- Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences postal mail address: PMB 351634 Nashville, TN 37235-1634, U.S.A. delivery address: 2125 Stevenson Center 1161 21st Ave., S. Nashville, TN 37235 office: 2128 Stevenson Center phone: (615) 343-4582, fax: (615) 322-4942 If you fax, please phone or email so that I will know to look for it. http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu http://vanderbilt.edu/trees

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TDWG 2016 Bioblitz - making it happen
by joel sachs 04 Nov '16

04 Nov '16

Hi Everyone, We are organizing a bioblitz-like activity at TDWG this year. Rob Stevenson has volunteered to coordinate. Over the course of the week, meeting participants will be encouraged both to post ad hoc observations, and to lead or attend organized observing sessions (e.g. birding outings, moth lighting evenings, etc.). This will culminate in a visit to the Soltis Centre [1], which the organizing committee has arranged for Thursday afternoon. One goal is to finish the meeting with a nice "biodiversity snapshot of TDWG 2016". Another is to shepherd the data into GBIF. Here are some details, and some requests: i. We will create an iNaturalist project for the bioblitz, and encourage the use of iNaturalist to make observations. You can browse through some iNaturalist-based bioblitzes at http://www.inaturalist.org/pages/bioblitz+guide. It's straightforward to browse by taxon or by observer, and by observations for which help with identification has been requested. ii. eBird and Pl@ntNet are also great apps, and we will also support (in the sense described below) their use for recording observations. Steve Kelling (eBird) , and Pierre Bonnet (Pl@ntNet), are participating in the meeting and even though iNaturalist co-director Scott Loarie can not be with us, he has agreed to help us on line. Pl@ntNet's Central American project is not yet public, but Pierre has offered to give us access. iii. It would be great to have a data team, similar to the one we put together in Woods Hole in 2010, that interacts with the APIs of the observation apps to harvest, integrate, and present/visualize the data. One of the purposes of this exercise will be to gain some insight regarding citizen science app interoperability. REQUEST 1: Would anyone like to volunteer for the data team? iv. Rob has compiled a list of taxa and associated experts who will either be at the meeting, or who are resident in Costa Rica, and who may be able to join for bioblitz activities. He's in the process of contacting people on this list. But Rob doesn't know everyone. This brings us to REQUEST 2: Can anyone volunteer to lead an observing session, or to liaise with a local colleague or guide who can do so? With the exception of the trip to the Soltis Centre, which is on the program, opportunities to observe will need to be carved out of free time in and around La Fortuna (where most of us are staying) and San Carlos (site of the conference). REQUEST 3: This is for people both attending and not attending the meeting. If you can assist in identifying observations in specific taxonomic groups, please volunteer to do so. You can use iNaturalist to monitor observations of your group, and to weigh in on unidentified or mis-identified images. v. This is very important. Unless you have a permit, don't collect anything, and don't kill anything. This email's main purpose is to motivate everyone to start thinking, and some people to start planning. More, better details will follow in the coming days and weeks. In the meantime, please chime in with questions and ideas. On behalf of Rob Stevenson and the TDWG 2016 program committee - All the best, Joel. --- 1. http://soltiscentercostarica.tamu.edu/

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TDWG BSCI Hackathon
by James Macklin 31 Oct '16

31 Oct '16

Dear All, I would encourage any of you who are interested in this topic to join in (see info below). Note that you do not need to participate during the whole time, this is just meant to be a window of time for the group to focus on the topic. We all need focus :-) Best, JAmes Dear TDWG BSCI Members, The TDWG Biodiversity Services and Clients Interest Group (BSCI, http://www.tdwg.org/activities/biodiversity-services-clients) will hold an open virtual hackathon in the week November 14-18. In the hackathon, we will define technical and organisational aspects of biodiversity informatics web services, which should be considered for achieving improved harmonisation and interoperability of APIs. We will also compile existing best practice documents for service implementations from different domains and consider their application for biodiversity informatics. During the week, all materials will be compiled publicly on the BSCI wiki at http://tdwgbsci.biowikifarm.net/wiki/. Results of the hackathon as well as the roadmap to a biodiversity service implementation standard will be further discussed during the 2016 TDWG conference in Costa Rica (Workshop 01, "Towards Best Practices for the Implementation and Documentation of Biodiversity Informatics Services", http://www.tdwg.org/conference2016/). The hackathon will be open to all interested participants. For more information or to be added to our list of participants please contact James Macklin (James.Macklin(a)AGR.GC.CA) or Anton Güntsch (a.guentsch(a)bgbm.org). With best wishes, James & Anton

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I'm a fraud???
by Steve Baskauf 25 Oct '16

25 Oct '16

What's the deal with the "This sender failed our fraud detection checks and may not be who they appear to be." that got tacked onto the message I just sent to the list? Steve -- Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences postal mail address: PMB 351634 Nashville, TN 37235-1634, U.S.A. delivery address: 2125 Stevenson Center 1161 21st Ave., S. Nashville, TN 37235 office: 2128 Stevenson Center phone: (615) 343-4582, fax: (615) 322-4942 If you fax, please phone or email so that I will know to look for it. http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu http://vanderbilt.edu/trees

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official home of the "TDWG GUID Applicability Statement" ?
by Stoner, Dan 30 Sep '16

30 Sep '16

I found this: http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/pages/guid-applicability-final-2011-01.pdf but have not found the same document at tdwg.org. It is not in the list of documents on this page: http://www.tdwg.org/activities/guid/documents/ (Feature request... if possible add some kind of "date" column. to the GUID Documents and Reports table). I notice that the "GUID" section of the wiki that is linked from the main page does not seem to exist. http://wiki.tdwg.org/GUID/ or http://www.tdwg.org/activities/guid/guid-wiki/ I think maybe I found the Word Document source in github... https://github.com/tdwg/guid-as Thanks, Dan Stoner

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New TDWG Constitution submitted to the membership for review
by Stanley Blum 12 Sep '16

12 Sep '16

[ Please excuse the duplicate posts of this important announcement. ] TDWG Executive Committee proposes a new Constitution. In 2015, the TDWG Executive Committee commissioned a team to assess TDWG's structure and effectiveness, and to propose changes to the TDWG Constitution as needed. That work is now complete, and the Executive Committee has advanced the proposal to the membership for review. The revised Constitution aims to engage more people in the ongoing activities of TDWG, and to promote continuity in governance across years. If the proposed Constitution is adopted, new committees will be created and charged with ongoing responsibilities, and new officers will be elected to lead those committees. Read more about the motivation and the detailed changes here <http://www.tdwg.org/about-tdwg/new-constitution/> and in the Review Package <http://www.tdwg.org/fileadmin/tdwg/about-tdwg/tdwg-constitution-2016__packa…> . The 90-day review period began on 06-Sep-2016, with publication of theReview Package <http://www.tdwg.org/fileadmin/tdwg/about-tdwg/tdwg-constitution-2016__packa…> on the TDWG website. It will end with with the close of electronic voting on 06-Dec-2016. Each member is encouraged to read the proposal and assess the changes against the rationale presented in the package. Comments can be sent to the TDWG secretary (secretary [at] tdwg [dot] org) until 30 days prior to the close of the vote. (Additional information about comments and the comment period will be posted on the proposal page of TDWG website <http://www.tdwg.org/about-tdwg/new-constitution/> before 30 Sep.) Voting will be electronic. Each member in good standing[1] will receive an electronic ballot, and will be entitled to one vote (approve/disapprove). A majority of votes cast in each membership category, individual and institutional, will be required to adopt the new Constitution. On behalf of the Executive Committee, Dimitrios Koureas, TDWG Secretary Stan Blum, TDWG Coordinator [1] To be a member in good standing, at least one of the following must be true: 1) you paid TDWG membership dues in either 2015 or 2016; 2) you attended the annual meeting in 2015; or 3) you have paid registration fees to attend the annual meeting in 2016. Please inquire with the TDWG Treasurer (treasurer [at] tdwg.org), if you would like to confirm your membership status.

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Software Carpentry pre-BIS-TDWG 2016
by Deborah Paul 12 Sep '16

12 Sep '16

Hi All, There's a Software Carpentry (SC) workshop set up for the 2 days just before BIS TDWG 2016. It's an opportunity to see what SC is all about and for anyone attending to stretch or enhance their data skills a bit. You can read about the course content on the course wiki: http://idigbio.github.io/2016-12-03-tdwg-costa-rica/ > Core topics include: > > * automating tasks using the Unix shell > * structured programming in Python, R, or MATLAB, and > * version control using Git or Mercurial > > We plan to offer an additional half-day of training focused on using > the big data available from the iDigBio <http://www.idigbio.org> > project. This may include programming with web APIs, distributed > computation with Apache Spark, or similar topics. There are still some slots left. So if you, or perhaps a student you know who is going to attend BIS TDWG 2016, please pass along news about this opportunity. Best, Deb, Matt, Dimitrios, Nicky, et al -- -- Upcoming iDigBio Events https://www.idigbio.org/calendar -- Deborah Paul, iDigBio Digitization and Workforce Training Specialist iDigBio -- Steering Committee Member, SPNHC Liaison, SYNTHESYS3 Representative Institute for Digital Information, 234 LSB Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida 32306 850-644-6366

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Abstracts due 6 Sept for TDWG2016
by Kampmeier, Gail E 31 Aug '16

31 Aug '16

Hola! Time to get serious about writing up your abstract for the upcoming TDWG 2016 meeting in Costa Rica this December http://www.tdwg.org/conference2016/. The due date is 6 September for invited speakers in symposia as well as for contributed oral and poster presentations. The body of the abstract should be 400 words or less; see https://mbgserv18.mobot.org/ocs/index.php/tdwg/tdwg2016/schedConf/cfp for more information. Currently 13 symposia (three symposia combined recently under the banner of Semantics for Biodiversity Science - An Interoperability Frontier), 7 workshops, and 10 Interest/Task Groups are planning to meet at TDWG this year. For information about registration, see http://www.tdwg.org/conference2016/#c1807 And don’t forget about the pre-conference Software Carpentry Workshop, which will be taught by Matthew Collins, Deb Paul, and Dimitrios Koureas 3-4 December http://www.tdwg.org/conference2016/#c1862 At $100 ($50 for students), this is not to be missed. Space is limited, so sign up soon! The conference website also features information about hotels http://www.tdwg.org/conference2016/hotels/ with special rates negotiated for TDWG2016 and post-conference excursions or BioCursos http://www.tdwg.org/conference2016/excursions/ through OTS (Organization for Tropical Studies). Hasta pronto en Costa Rica! Gail & Erick P.S. Please pass the word to other interested networks Gail Kampmeier Erick Mata Program co-chairs TDWG 2016 conference(a)tdwg.org<mailto:conference@tdwg.org>

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CFP: TDWG 2016 Workshop on the use of wikis in biodiversity informatics
by joel sachs 28 Aug '16

28 Aug '16

Everyone, The submission deadline for the below is soon, but the bar is low - a paragraph or two describing what you're up to, and any challenges that you're facing. Our main goal is to get a sense of who's doing what in this space, and to discuss prospects for helping each other. If you'd like to be involved in the conversation, but won't be able to make it to Costa Rica, please let me know. Best, Joel. ---- The Use of Wikis in Biodiversity Informatics Workshop to be held at TDWG 2016 (Dec. 5-9) in Santa Clara de San Carlos, Costa Rica Instruction for submitting abstracts are at https://mbgserv18.mobot.org/ocs/index.php/tdwg/tdwg2016/schedConf/cfp Abstracts due: Sept. 6, 2016 Wiki technologies, in particular those built on top of Semantic MediaWiki and Wikidata, are being used to store, curate, query, integrate, and reason over a range of biodiversity-related data. This workshop will comprise a selection of talks describing some of these uses, followed by a discussion of gaps in the wiki ecology, and opportunities that might exist to fill those gaps through coordinated research and development.

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