March 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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DCMI Webinar: "Approaches to Making Dynamic Data Citable: Recommendations of the RDA Working Group"
by DCMI Announce 16 Mar '15

16 Mar '15

******************Please excuse the cross postings****************** *DCMI/ASIST Joint Webinar* "*Approaches to Making Dynamic Data Citable: Recommendations of the RDA Working Group*" *:: Presenter:* Andreas Rauber *:: Date:* Wednesday, 8 April 2015 *:: Time:* 10:00am - 11:15am EDT (World Clock: 14:00 UTC http://bit.ly/Webinar-Andreas_Rauber) *:: Registration:* http://dublincore.org/resources/training/#2015rauber *ABOUT THE WEBINAR:* Being able to reliably and efficiently identify entire or subsets of data in large and dynamically growing or changing datasets constitutes a significant challenge for a range of research domains. In order to repeat an earlier study, to apply data from an earlier study to a new model, we need to be able to precisely identify the very subset of data used. While verbal descriptions of how the subset was created (e.g. by providing selected attribute ranges and time intervals) are hardly precise enough and do not support automated handling, keeping redundant copies of the data in question does not scale up to the big data settings encountered in many disciplines today. Furthermore, we need to be able to handle situations where new data gets added or existing data gets corrected or otherwise modified over time. Conventional approaches, such as assigning persistent identifiers to entire data sets or individual subsets or data items, are thus not sufficient. In this webinar, Andreas Rauber will review the challenges identified above and discuss solutions that are currently elaborated within the context of the working group of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) on Data Citation: Making Dynamic Data Citeable. The approach is based on versioned and time-stamped data sources, with persistent identifiers being assigned to the time-stamped queries/expressions that are used for creating the subset of data. We will further review results from the first pilots evaluating the approach. *ABOUT THE PRESENTER:* Andreas Rauber is Associate Professor at the Department of Software Technology and Interactive Systems (IFS <http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/ifs/frontpage>) at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien <http://www.tuwien.ac.at/>). He furthermore is president of AARIT <http://aarit.at/>, the Austrian Association for Research in IT and a Key Researcher at Secure Business Austria (SBA-Research). He is co-chairing the RDA Working Group on Data Citation together with Ari Asmi and Dieter van Uytvanck. He received his MSc and PhD in Computer Science from the Vienna University of Technology in 1997 and 2000, respectively. In 2001 he joined the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) in Pisa as an ERCIM Research Fellow, followed by an ERCIM Research position at the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA), at Rocquencourt, France, in 2002. From 2004-2008 he was also head of the iSpaces research group at the eCommerce Competence Center <http://www.ec3.at/>. For more information and to register, visit the event webpage: http://dublincore.org/resources/training/#2015rauber

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EXTENDED Call for Participation for DC-2015 in São Paulo, Brazil
by DCMI Announce 16 Mar '15

16 Mar '15

***Apologies for cross-posting*** *EXTENDED CALL FOR DC-2015 PARTICIPATION* DCMI 20th Anniversary International Conference & Annual Meeting September 1-5, 2015 — São Paulo, Brazil In response to many requests, the DC-2015 Program Committee has extended the Call for Participation to 11 April 2015. The extended deadlines are now: *Technical Program Deadlines:* *Peer-Reviewed Papers, Project Reports & Posters* --*EXTENDED: Submission Deadline: 11 April 2015* --Author Notification: 23 June 2015 --Final Copy: 28 July 2015 *Professional Program Deadlines* *Special & Panel Sessions* --*EXTENDED Proposal Deadline: 11 April 2015* --Author Notification: 25 April 2015 Best Practice Posters & Demonstrations --Submission Deadline: 14 July 2015 --Author Notification: Ongoing *=================* *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… *=================* *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 & Conference Chair Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil --Mariana Curado Malta, Chair, Program Committee CEISE/ISCAP - Polytechnic of Oporto, Portugal Algoritmi Center - University of Minho, Portugal --Silvana Borsetti Gregorio Vidotti, Professor Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil --Flávia Maria Bastos, CGB Coordinator General Coordination of Libraries Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil

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iDigBio Workshop: Managing NHC Data for Global Discoverability
by Deborah Paul 06 Mar '15

06 Mar '15

Hi Everyone, Trying to manage more and more collections data? Need data management skills? You're invited to apply now for the iDigBio Workshop, /Managing Natural History Collections Data for Global Discoverability./___ _* You can **read more and apply here*: https://www.idigbio.org/content/managing-natural-history-collections-data-g… *When*: September 15 - 17, 2015 (yes, 3 days) *Where*: Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, AZ *Expected Applicants*: **Anyone who manages museum specimen collection data is invited to apply. *What:* Our workshop: *Managing Natural History Collections Data for Global Discoverability* is the fourth in a series of biodiversity informatics workshops at iDigBio. The theme of /Collections Data for Global Discoverability/ is ideally suited for natural history collections specialists aiming to increase the /research readiness/ of their biodiversity data at a global scale. * Have you found yourself in situations where you need to manage larger quantities of collection records, or encounter challenges in carrying out updates or quality checks? * Do you mainly use spreadsheets (such as Excel) to clean and manage specimen-level data sets before uploading them into your collections database? * /*Skill level: *The workshop is most appropriate for those who are relatively new to collections data management and are motivated to provide the global research community with accessible, standards- and best practices-compliant biodiversity data./ *Funding and Logistics: *There are some funds to support travel this workshop. Rooms have been reserved with a group rate for those who travel from out-of-town for this workshop. All materials and recordings will be available after the workshop for others to use at their local institutions. There is no tuition for this course. *For workshop details see:* https://www.idigbio.org/content/managing-natural-history-collections-data-g… *Workshop co-sponsors: *Arizona State University (ASU) and iDigBio. *Workshop organizers:* Tri-Trophic TCN (TTD-TCN, AMNH), ASU, iDigBio, DataONE, and NCEAS Got questions? Send to Deb Paul dpaul(a)fsu.edu Please share this with any potential interested parties. (please excuse x-posting) -- -- Upcoming iDigBio Events https://www.idigbio.org/calendar -- Deborah Paul, iDigBio Technology Specialist Institute for Digital Information, 234 LSB Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida 32306 850-644-6366

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