June 2012 - tdwg - lists.tdwg.org

Public Participation in Digitization of Biodiversity Specimens Workshop
by Austin Mast 22 Jun '12

22 Jun '12

It is our pleasure to announce that iDigBio, the National Science Foundation’s National Resource for Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections (www.idigbio.org) is offering a workshop focused on engaging the public in the digitization of the US's ca. 1 billion biodiversity specimens in ways that are interesting and educational for the participants and efficient and reliable for the projects managing the digitization. The workshop is co-organized by iDigBio’s Public Participation in Digitization Working Group and iDigBio’s Education and Outreach Working Group. The target audience for the workshop includes digitization project leaders, biodiversity informatics software developers, and informal education community members. The workshop will (1) identify steps in the digitization process that could involve the public, (2) establish one or more workflows for each of those steps, keeping the motivations driving public participants and digitizing institutions in mind, (3) identify existing tools, expertise, and communities that can be engaged in the workflows and gaps where new tools, expertise, or communities are needed, and (4) start individuals or small groups on the path of making those workflows a reality. The workshop will be held at University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, September 28–29, 2012. Funding is available to support travel and per diem for five additional participants through a competitive application process. Those desiring to attend this workshop should submit their CV and a succinct paragraph (<200 words) explaining how their attendance will contribute to the successful completion of the four workshop goals given above to Cathy Bester (cbester(a)flmnh.ufl.edu) by July 16, 2012 The committee anticipates notifying applicants of decisions by July 20. Questions about the content of the workshop can be directed to Austin Mast (amast(a)bio.fsu.edu) With best regards, Austin Mast (on behalf of the iDigBio Public Participation in Digitization Working Group) and Betty Dunckel (on behalf of the iDigBio Education and Outreach Working Group) Austin Mast Associate Professor Director of the Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium Member of the Steering Committee of iDigBio, The National Resource for Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections Department of Biological Science 319 Stadium Drive Florida State University Tallahassee, FL 32306-4295 U.S.A. Office: King Life Science Building, room 4065 Lab: King Life Science Building, rooms 4068 and 4084 Herbarium: Biological Science Unit One, room 100 Voice: 1 (850) 645-1500 Fax: 1 (850) 645-8447 amast(a)bio.fsu.edu

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Biodiversity Informatics White Paper: first draft
by Dave Roberts 15 Jun '12

15 Jun '12

Dear all, we have drawn together the initial ideas and contributions people have made into a first draft here: http://is.gd/WhitePaperChapters The format we've chosen to use follows the LERU report (link is on the first page of the Googledoc) which pitches a bullet point followed by a supporting paragraph. Inevitably this is too short to take much of the argument made in some contributions. I suggest that people can either tidy up their chapters and we bundle them in an annex or I'll try and edit them from notes into English and keep them as available. Note also the details of the public meeting in Brussels on 17th July. Details on the Googledoc. Please modify the document directly, but log into Google or otherwise identify yourself so that we can add you to Annex 1 (list of contributors). Cheers, Dave Roberts -- Dr D.McL. Roberts, Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5086 Dept. Zoology, Fax: +44 (0)20 7942 5054 The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD Great Britain Email: dmr at nomencurator dot org Web page: http://scratchpads.eu http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/projects/euk-extreme/ -- "Researchers typically build databases the quickest way they know how, without necessarily considering whether they will work with other databases." Heidi Ledford, Nature 25 June 09, p1048. --

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Last reminder: Deadline for iEvoBio Challenge Competitions is approaching
by Cellinese,Nico 12 Jun '12

12 Jun '12

The deadline for submissions to the yearly iEvoBio Challenge is June 25, 2012, and is rapidly approaching! This is our last reminder. This year’s theme is "Synthesizing Phylogenies," and further information on criteria for challenge entries, how to submit them, and award amount can be found at http://ievobio.org/challenge.html. Also, Biomatters Ltd is running the Geneious Challenge alongside iEvoBio’s competition. The goal of this challenge is to develop a new and exciting visualization or analysis plugin to Geneious Pro, using the public API. Seehttp://ievobio.org/geneious_challenge.html for more information. The deadline for this competition is also June 25. More details about the iEvoBio 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 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 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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