Hi Rupert
Sorry I didn't specifically address your idea about mentors in my last post. It's a darn good notion, but I fear that the techies who are the ones who know the domain best are so overloaded (and in some cases burnt out) that adding mentoring to their agenda may be tricky. TDWG depends on a few key individuals with advanced skills to progress standards development. Those poor buggers are stretched to the limit. All the rest of us struggle to comprehend, let alone catch up.
But as many have said, TDWG needs to address the knowledge gap. I have sponsored 1-page 'Executive Summaries' for Darwin Core, ABCD, TCS, TAPIR, NCD (see the various groups web sites) but we don't have anything similar on the ontology for example. I may try and tackle this unless someone else would like to have a go. Any others ideas are more than welcomed.
We did run a series of introductory workshops at the meeting last year in Fremantle. These were extremely well attended and did seem to work a treat in getting a lot of people up to speed in four different. By the way that the programme is shaping for Montpellier, it looks extremely doubtful that we will have opportunity for a similar set of workshops, except maybe for an EDIT scratchpad workshop I believe. I suspect that the Theme on Data Integration that Roger is leading may provide an opportunity to get up to speed and advance some aspects. Feel free to add to the current pandemonium of the poor Programme Committee at http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/Conferences/Tdwg2009.
I've cc'd Adrian who can add your mentoring idea to the agenda of the Executive Committee meeting that we need to have soon. BTW: I have led the push for mentoring in two large organisations, currently have a mentor and am mentoring someone else. So I am a keen advocate!
Cheers
Lee
Lee Belbin
TDWG Secretariat
From: tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-tag-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of rupertwilson@rhs.org.uk Sent: Thursday, 14 May 2009 6:56 PM To: tdwg-tag@lists.tdwg.org Cc: Lynette.Woodburn@csiro.au Subject: Re: [tdwg-tag] [BULK] TDWG ontology revisited ... a newcomer's perspective
As one of those not-so-newcomers who has been attending TDWG meetings for the last few years I feel I should speak out in agreement with Lynette. Whilst I may understand the general ideas the techno-speak is truly baffling. I appreciate that technology is evolving and the TDWG community is looking for the best way to embrace it but could you not spare a thought for those organisations like mine who have information they would like to share but are bewildered by the multitude of ways to do it? Having limited development resources the last thing I want my organisation to do is deliver information using technology "a" which is currently flavour of the moment only to find in twelve months that we should really be using technology "b" because that is what everyone else is using. I feel there is also a divide here between the research community which can chop and change the way it handles its data and the more constrained organisations such as mine where the data is of critical/core use to the organisation and can't be re-purposed as easily.
Perhaps TDWG would also consider identifying mentors who would be willing to offer support to those lurking in the back of Aladdin's Cave currently too scared to come out into the light?
Rupert Wilson
RHS Horticultural Database
Royal Horticultural Society
Wisley, UK.
ceipt or use thereof.