February 2015 - tdwg - lists.tdwg.org

In Memoriam Dr Richard Pankhurst
by Mergen Patricia 14 Dec '15

14 Dec '15

Dear Colleagues, On behalf of TDWG we are very sorry to inform you that Richard John Pankhurst passed away on Tuesday 26 March after fighting oesophageal cancer for many years. He was a very important contributer and friend of TDWG, as can be judged from his short CV from the BioCISE directory: Dr Richard Pankhurst began his career in computing in the computer section at CERN, Geneva in 1963, and moving back to Cambridge to work on Computer-Aided Design in 1966. In 1971 he moved to the Botany School, Cambridge to begin work on his PANKEY programs for identification and key construction. This was continued at the Botany department of the Natural History Museum from 1974 until 1991, where he was for many years curator of the British herbarium, and also worked on the Flora Meso-Americana. "Biological Identification", 1978, was the first textbook on computer methods in identification. A new version of this book was published by C.U.P in 1991. Also published in that year was the Flora of the Outer Hebrides. With over 50 publications of refereed papers and books in the fields of taxonomic computing he has made major contributions to these fields. Dr. Pankhurst has been very active recently in programming and managing botanical databases (Flora Europaea, BSBI database and PANDORA) and systems with images. He was appointed Principal Scientific Officer at the RGB Edinburgh in 1991. Dr. Pankhurst served on various committees of British and international organizations, among others. Botanical Society of the British Isles, Committee for Scotland and Database Committee. Botanical Society of Scotland, Council. Taxonomic Databases Working Group, convener of Descriptors Group. International Organisation for Plant Information, co-convener of Information Systems Committee, Checklist Committee. Dr. Pankhurst was the head of the Department of Taxonomic Computing at RGBE. After his official retirement, he compiled a large database of the Rose family. His work on recording the wild flowers of the Outer Hebrides took him frequently to these remote islands on behalf of the Botanical Society of the British Isles. His interest in Taraxacum (dandelions) was acknowledged when a species found only on St. Kilda was named *Taraxacum pankhurstianum*. In Richard, not only a very important scientist was lost to our community, but also a very pleasant collaborator and friend . <patricia.mergen(a)africamuseum.be> Dr. Patricia Mergen (General Secretary of TDWG, on behalf of the Executive Committee) Head of Biodiversity Information and Cybertaxonomy Royal Museum for Central Africa Leuvensesteenweg 13 B-3080 Tervuren Belgium + 32 2 769 5 *626* patricia.mergen(a)africamuseum.be

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DC-2015 Professional Program call for participation
by DCMI Announce 23 Feb '15

23 Feb '15

***Apologies for cross-posting*** *DC-2015 -- DCMI 20th Anniversary International Conference & Annual Meeting* *September 1-5, 2015 — São Paulo, Brazil* *Conference Theme: * *Metadata and Ubiquitous Access to Culture, Science and Digital Humanities* *==================================* *WEBSITE:* http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2015 *CALL FOR PARTICIPATION:* http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2015/cfp *TRACK POLICIES:* http://dcevents.dublincore.org/index.php/IntConf/dc-2015/schedConf/trackPol… *==================================* *:: DC-2015 Professional Program ::* *Professional Program Objectives* Each of the past 20 years, practitioners and researchers in metadata have gathered for DCMI's annual meeting and international conference. This year, we will be gathering in São Paulo, Brazil. The scope of interests for the Professional Program is broad and inclusive of all aspects of innovative metadata design, implementation, and best practices in all sectors from cultural heritage institutions to governments and commerce. While the work of the DCMI progresses throughout the year, the annual meeting and conference provide the opportunity for researchers, newcomers to metadata, students, apprentices, and early career professionals to gather face-to-face to share experiences and knowledge and to learn through *Tutorials*, *Workshops*, and *Special Sessions* tracks. In addition, the *Best Practice Posters & Demonstration* tracks offer the practitioner the opportunity to: - *showcase metadata work *underway or completed in their particular contexts, - *seek input* from the larger community on metadata matters of concern, - *compare notes* on innovative practice, and - *cast a broader light* into their particular metadata work silos. Through such a gathering of the metadata communities of practice, DCMI advances its "first goal" of promoting metadata interoperability and harmonization across the metadata ecosystem. *Submission & Session Languages* Proposals for Professional Program tracks may be in *Portuguese* or *English*. Depending on the language of the session presenters, simultaneous English/Portuguese or Portuguese/English translation will be provided. *Submissions and presentations by Portuguese speakers are strongly encouraged*. *Important Professional Program Deadlines* * Tutorials, Workshops, and Special Session* ---*Proposal Abstract Deadline:* 28 March 2015 ---*Proposer Notification*: 25 April 2015 *Best Practice Posters & Demonstrations* ---*Submission Deadline:* 14 July 2015 ---*Author Notification:* Ongoing *Questions Regarding the Professional Program?* -- *Questions in Portuguese: * Mariana Curado Malta - mariana(at)iscap(dot)ipp(dot)pt -- *Questions in English: * Stuart Sutton - sasutton(at)dublincore(dot)net; or Mariana Curado Malta - mariana(at)iscap(dot)ipp(dot)pt *==================================* *Conference Organizers:* --Universidade Estadual Paulista--São Paulo State University (UNESP) --Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) *==================================* *Please join us at DC-2015 in São Paulo, Brazil?*

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Taxonomy Boot Camp: November 2 - 3, 2015
by DCMI Announce 15 Feb '15

15 Feb '15

*** Please excuse the cross-posting *** *Taxonomy Boot Camp * *Sharing Solutions: Taxonomy Across Boundaries* ======================== *Event URL:* http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2015/ *Dates: *November 2 - 3, 2015 *Where: *JW Marriott Washington DC • Washington, DC ======================== Taxonomies are powerful tools used by a wide range of professionals, from marketers to data scientists, for solving diverse problems from navigation to product information management. This year’s Taxonomy Boot Camp <http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2015/> is about highlighting taxonomy's many faces and sharing practical solutions in different real-world environments Taxonomy Boot Camp <http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2015/> is the only conference dedicated to exploring the successes, challenges, products, and development of taxonomies. Share your experiences, knowledge, and work with taxonomies, ontologies, folksonomies, content labeling systems, and other mechanisms for organizing information at this one-of-a-kind boutique learning and networking event. *Topics include but are not limited to:* - Taxonomy/ontology modeling and development best practices - Taxonomy governance & adoption - Techniques for maintaining taxonomies (analytics, testing, etc.) - Information architecture and user experience (navigation, content publishing, etc.) - Metadata modeling and management (role of taxonomy) - Auto-categorization and other tagging techniques - Taxonomy management/development software selection and use - Working collaboratively with stakeholders, content and IT teams - User research & usability - Implementation of taxonomies and metadata in specific content management applications (including DAM, CMS, SharePoint, etc.) - Getting buy-in and proving ROI of taxonomy - Big data & big taxonomies – dealing with volume - Linked data, ontologies, semantic technology - Managing multi-lingual vocabularies To participate in Taxonomy Boot Camp <http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2015/> as a possible speaker, or to suggest a speaker, please submit your proposal no later than March 27, 2015. Submit your speaking proposal now <http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2015/CallForSpeakers.aspx>!

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DCMI Webinar: VocBench 2.0: A Web Application for Collaborative Development of Multilingual Thesauri
by DCMI Announce 14 Feb '15

14 Feb '15

*********** Please excuse the cross postings *********** VocBench 2.0: A Web Application for Collaborative Development of Multilingual Thesauri *DCMI/ASIST Joint Webinar* ==================================================================== *:: Time:* 10:00am EST (World Clock: 15:00 UTC http://bit.ly/DCMI-Webinar-Stellato) *:: Presenters:* Caterina Caracciolo & Armando Stellato *:: Date:* Wednesday, 4 March 2015 *:: Registration:* http://wiki.dublincore.org/index.php/DCMI_Handbook/webinars#2015caracciolo ==================================================================== *ABOUT THE WEBINAR:* VocBench is a web-based platform for the collaborative maintenance of multilingual thesauri. VocBench is an open source project, developed in the context of a collaboration between the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN (FAO) and the University of Rome Tor Vergata. VocBench is currently used for the maintenance of AGROVOC, EUROVOC, GEMET, the thesaurus of the Italian Senate, the Unified Astronomy Thesaurus of Harvard University, as well as other thesauri. VocBench has a strong focus on collaboration, supported by workflow management for content validation and publication. Dedicated user roles provide a clean separation of competencies, addressing different specificities ranging from management aspects to vertical competencies in content editing, such as conceptualization versus terminology editing. Extensive support for scheme management allows editors to fully exploit the possibilities of the SKOS model, as well as to fulfill its integrity constraints. VocBench has been open source software since version 2 -- open to a large community of users and institutions supporting its development with their feedback and ideas. During the webinar, Dr. Caracciolo and Dr. Stellato will demonstrate the main features of VocBench from the point of view of users and system administrators, and explain in what way you may join the project. *ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:* *Caterina Caracciolo*, PhD, has served as an Information Specialist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since 2006. Currently, she is responsible for the AGROVOC Concept Scheme, and participates in the GACS Working Group and the Wheat Data Interoperability Working Group (RDA). Her main interest lay in the area of semantics for data integration and sharing, with a special focus on data specific to the domains of agriculture, biodiversity, natural science and environment in the broad sense. She regularly serves on program committees for international conferences and publishes in conference proceedings and journals in the area of semantic web and information sharing in agriculture and biodiversity. She has worked in various EC-funded projects and served as also served as Work Package leader in the NeOn and SemaGrow projects. *Armando Stellato*, PhD, is Researcher at the University of Rome, Tor Vergata, where he carries on research and teaching in the fields of Knowledge Representation and Knowledge Based Systems. He is author of more than 70 publications on conferences and journals in the fields of Semantic Web, Natural Language Processing and related areas and has been member of the program committees of over 30 international scientific conferences and workshops. Currently his main interests cover Architecture Design for Knowledge Based Systems, Knowledge Acquisition and Onto-Linguistic interfaces, for which he participated to several EU funded projects, such as Crossmarc, Moses, Cuspis, Diligent, Neon, INSEARCH, SCIDIP-ES, AgInfra SemaGrow. Dr. Stellato is also consultant at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations as Semantic Architect, working on all aspects related to maintenance and publication of FAO RDF vocabularies such as AGROVOC, Biotech and Journal Authority Data and on the development of VocBench, an Application for Collaborative Management of RDF Vocabularies. For more information and to register, visit http://wiki.dublincore.org/index.php/DCMI_Handbook/webinars#2015caracciolo

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Call for presentations for the Biodiversity Data IG session at RDA plenary in San Diego
by Dimitris Koureas 04 Feb '15

04 Feb '15

Dear all, (Apologies for any cross-postings) We are fast approaching the next RDA plenary in San Diego (9-11 Mar 2015) (http://rd-alliance.org). The Biodiversity Data Integration Interest Group (BDI IG) made some significant steps in both promoting key issues (e.g. names and name services) as a key challenge for bringing together research data across life sciences. Furthermore, the BDI IG proposed a joint meeting to be held at the next RDA plenary that will enable environmental and biodiversity related and cross-cutting groups to initiate a direct dialogue on common issues (https://rd-alliance.org/Environment-related-Plenary-Session). The BDI IG will also run a breakout session. The session will take place on Tuesday 10 Mar between 09.00 and 10.30. In the context of the RDA plenary theme ('adopt a deliverable'), we are looking for presentations that will demonstrate successful examples of biodiversity data integration for facilitating biodiversity and environmental research. The examples might be presented both from a technological (deployment of tools or services) or scientific (case studies) perspective. We would like to invite you to submit your proposals for short presentations (up to 10 min) at the next Biodiversity Data Integration IG breakout session. Please send your proposals (mail to d.koureas(a)nhm.ac.uk<mailto:d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk>) by Monday 9 Feb. On behalf of the BDI IG chairs, Kind regards, Dimitris -- Dr Dimitrios Koureas Dept of Life Sciences | Biodiversity Informatics Group Natural History Museum London | SW7 5BD London, UK Research Data Alliance - Biodiversity Data Integration IG, co-chair Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), executive member ORCID: 0000-0002-4842-6487 | Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/dkoureas E-mail: d.koureas(a)nhm.ac.uk<mailto:d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk> | Twitter: @DimitrisKoureas | Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 5244

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DC-2015 Call for Participation - 2nd notice, São Paulo, Brazil
by DCMI Announce 03 Feb '15

03 Feb '15

*Apologies for cross-posting* Metadata and Ubiquitous Access to Culture, Science and Digital Humanities *DCMI 20th Anniversary International Conference & Annual Meeting* *September 1-5, 2015 — São Paulo, Brazil* ================= *Conference Website:* http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2015 *Call for Participation:* http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2015/cfp *Track Policies:* http://dcevents.dublincore.org/index.php/IntConf/dc-2015/schedConf/trackPol… ================= *Abstract:* The need for structured metadata to support ubiquitous access across the Web to the treasure troves of resources spanning cultures, in science, and in the digital humanities is now common knowledge among information systems designers and implementers. Structured metadata expressed through languages of description make it possible for us to 'speak' about the contents of our treasure troves. But, like all human languages, our languages of description both enable and isolate. The push to break out of the isolation of the metadata silos in which professionals inevitably design, implement and manage metadata in order to discover the intersections of our treasure troves drives much of today's discourse and emerging practice in metadata. The emergence of massively integrated Web presences such as Europeana and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) along with the reshaping of public access globally through mechanisms such as Linked Data and schema.org drive our conversations, our excitement, and our fears. *IMPORTANT DATES:* *Technical Program Deadlines:* *Peer-Reviewed Papers, Project Reports & Posters* --*Submission Deadline:* 28 March 2015 --*Author Notification:* 23 June 2015 --*Final Copy:* 28 July 2015 *Professional Program Deadlines * *Special & Panel Sessions* --*Proposal Deadline:* 28 March 2015 --*Author Notification: *25 April 2015 *Best Practice Posters & Demonstrations* --*Submission Deadline:* 14 July 2015 --*Author Notification:* Ongoing ================= *Join us in São Paulo, Brazil* Each of the past 20 years, the metadata community has gathered for DCMI's conference and annual meeting. The work agenda of the DCMI community is broad and inclusive of all aspects of innovation in metadata design, implementation and best practices. While the work of the Initiative progresses throughout the year, the annual meeting and conference provide the opportunity for DCMI "citizens" as well as newcomers, students, apprentices, and early career professionals to gather face-to-face to share experiences and knowledge. In addition, the gathering provides public- and private-sector initiatives beyond DCMI that are doing significant metadata work to come together to compare notes and cast a broader light into their particular metadata work silos. Through such a gathering of the metadata communities, DCMI advances its "first goal" of promoting metadata interoperability and harmonization. This year, the annual meeting and conference are being hosted by the Universidade Estadual Paulista--São Paulo State University (UNESP) and held in São Paulo, Brazil. ================= *CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS:* --Universidade Estadual Paulista--São Paulo State University (UNESP) --Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) ================= *CONFERENCE CHAIRS:* --Plácida Santos, Professor Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil --Silvana Borsetti Gregorio Vidotti, Professor Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil --Flávia Maria Bastos, CGB Coordinator General Coordination of Libraries Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil --Mariana Curado Malta CEISE/ISCAP - Polytechnic of Oporto, Portugal Algoritmi Center - University of Minho, Portugal

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