April 2012 - tdwg-tag - lists.tdwg.org

Proposed charter for a TAG Vocabulary Management Task Group (VOMAG)
by Dag Endresen (GBIF) 03 Nov '12

03 Nov '12

Dear TAG, After battling with the plans for a biodiversity knowledge organization (KOS) framework for biodiversity information resources we have identified the requirement to develop guidelines and best practices for the management of vocabularies of terms. Basic terms organized in vocabularies provides an essential element to underpin the biodiversity information standards. As introduced at the TDWG 2011 TAG meetings in New Orleans, we propose the formation of a new Vocabulary Management Task Group (VOMAG) [1] to be organized under the TDWG technical architecture group (TAG). Please find the draft charter available from the GBIF Community Site [2][3]. Here you will also find another draft document "Biodiversity Knowledge Organization System: Proposed Architecture; Version 0.1 February 2012" that provides an overview of the proposed KOS landscape and the context for the proposed work-plan of the Vocabulary Management Task Group Charter. This is the first draft so far only discussed with Greg Whitbread as convener of the TDWG TAG and with Steve Baskauf and Joel Sachs as convener of the TDWG RDF/OWL task group. We invite feedback and comments to the proposed formation of the task group including suggestions with regard to the work-plan. Please join the Vocabulary Management group at the GBIF Community Site [1]. You can start or participate in discussions or share suggestions using the GBIF Community Site. Feel also free to make contact with us to volunteer as a core member for this proposed task group! [1] http://community.gbif.org/pg/groups/21382/vocabulary-management/ [2] http://community.gbif.org/pg/file/read/21388/ [3] http://community.gbif.org/pg/blog/read/21387/ [4] http://community.gbif.org/pg/file/read/21582/ Best regards Dag, Eamonn and David -- Dag Endresen, PhD Knowledge Systems Engineer Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark http://community.gbif.org/pg/profile/dag.endresen

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Call for Software Bazaar entries open for Conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity
by Cellinese,Nico 24 Apr '12

24 Apr '12

The Call for Software Bazaar entries is now open for the 2012 conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio), at http://ievobio.org/ocs2/index.php/ievobio/2012. See below for instructions. The Software Bazaar features presenters demonstrating their software live on a laptop. At iEvoBio, this session takes the place of a poster session, and will be approximately 2.0 hours in duration. Conference attendees will be able to walk from one demonstration to the next and talk with the presenters. Please also see our FAQ (http://ievobio.org/faq.html). Entries should be software aimed at advancing research in phylogenetics, evolution, and biodiversity, and can include interactive visualizations that have been pre-computed (such as SVGs, or Google Earth-compatible KML files). Note that commercial marketing activities are not permitted - presenters wishing to promote commercial or proprietary services or products should contact the Evolution conference about exhibitor space (http://www.confersense.ca/Evolution2012). Submissions consist of a title, which will typically be the name of the software (or visualization method) being presented, the URL of a website where more information can be obtained, and the license under which the source code is available. The website must contain a link to where the source code (and possibly binaries) can be downloaded. If it is not obvious from the website, the submission must describe what the software does. Reviewers will judge whether a submission is within scope of the conference (see above), and need to be able to verify whether the open-source requirement(*) is met. Presenters are expected to bring their own laptops for presentation, and any auxiliary devices necessary (such as a mouse). Power will be available at the presentation tables (110V/60Hz, US-style plugs; international presenters need to bring a suitable adaptor). Please let the organizing committee know as much in advance as possible if you expect to have unusually high demands for wireless network bandwidth, a large display, or other hardware. Review and acceptance of Software Bazaar submissions will be on a rolling basis. The deadline for submission is the morning of the first day of the conference (July 10), but, because space for Software Bazaar presentations is finite, we cannot guarantee the availability of slots for late submissions. We cannot accept submissions until the open-source requirements are met. Software Bazaar demonstrations are only 1 of 5 kinds of contributed content that iEvoBio will feature. The other 4 are: 1) Full talks (closed), 2) Lightning talks, 3) Challenge entries, and 4) Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings. The Calls for Challenge entries (http://ievobio.org/challenge.html) and Lightning Talks (same submission URL as above) remain open, and the Birds-of-a-Feather call is forthcoming. More details about the conference and program are available at http://ievobio.org<http://ievobio.org/>. You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/iEvoBio and Google+ page, or subscribe to the low-traffic iEvoBio announcements mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/ievobio-announce. iEvoBio 2012 is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and by Biomatters Ltd., in partnership with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and the Systematic Biologists (SSB). The iEvoBio 2012 Organizing Committee: Hilmar Lapp, US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (chair) Robert Beiko, Dalhousie University Nico Cellinese, University of Florida and Florida Museum of Natural History Robert Guralnick, University of Colorado at Boulder Rebecca Kao, Denver Botanic Gardens Ellinor Michel, Natural History Museum, London Nadia Talent, Royal Ontario Museum Andrea Thomer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (*) iEvoBio and its sponsors are dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of Open Source software development (see http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php) and reuse within the research community. For this reason, software to be demonstrated to conference attendees must be licensed with a recognized Open Source License (see http://www.opensource.org/licenses/), and be available for download, including source code, by a tar/zip file accessed through ftp/http or through a widely used version control system like cvs, Subversion, git, Bazaar, or Mercurial. Authors are advised that non-compliant submissions must be revised to meet the requirement by July 8 at the latest, and in the event that presentation slots run out, precedence is established by the date they are first found in compliance, not the date of submission. _______________________________________________

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Deadline extension for full talk abstracts for Conference on Informatics
by Cellinese,Nico 03 Apr '12

03 Apr '12

The deadline for submitting abstracts for full talks to the 2012 conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio) has been extended to Monday, April 9, 2012. We hope that this will give those interested in contributing sufficient time to do so. Please see http://bit.ly/iEvoBio2012_CfA for the full Call for Abstracts and author instructions. We still expect to be able to notify accepted talks in time for the early registration deadline of iEvoBio (and Evolution). More details about the program and guidelines for contributing content are available athttp://ievobio.org<http://ievobio.org/>. You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/iEvoBio) or Google Plus page (http://bit.ly/iEvoBio-on-Gplus), and there is a Google group you can join at http://groups.google.com/group/ievobio-announce to receive announcements. iEvoBio 2012 is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and by Biomatters Ltd., in partnership with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB). The iEvoBio 2012 Organizing Committee: Hilmar Lapp, US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (chair) Robert Beiko, Dalhousie University Nico Cellinese, University of Florida and Florida Museum of Natural History Robert Guralnick, University of Colorado at Boulder Rebecca Kao, Denver Botanic Gardens Ellinor Michel, Natural History Museum, London Nadia Talent, Royal Ontario Museum Andrea Thomer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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