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GBIF KOS report published
by Éamonn Ó Tuama (GBIF) 09 Feb '11

09 Feb '11

The GBIF-commissioned white paper on Knowledge Organisation Systems (i.e., Controlled Vocabularies, Ontologies, Thesauri, etc.) for biodiversity informatics is now available at: http://links.gbif.org/gbif_kos_whitepaper_v1.pdf. The white paper provides a set of recommendations for consideration by GBIF and these are expected to inform the development of the GBIF work programme, both in 2011 and in our 3rd (2012-2016) five-year phase. Feedback on the white paper is welcomed. Please use the dedicated page (http://community.gbif.org/pg/pages/view/11223/gbif-kos-report) of the KOS Interest Group section (http://community.gbif.org/pg/groups/11222/kos-interest-group/) on the GBIF Community site. With regards, Éamonn Ó Tuama _______________________________________________ Éamonn Ó Tuama, M.Sc., Ph.D. (eotuama(a)gbif.org), Senior Programme Officer, Inventory, Discovery, Access (IDA), Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, DENMARK Phone: +45 3532 1494; Fax: +45 3532 1480

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Registration Open for Conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio)
by Robert Guralnick 01 Feb '11

01 Feb '11

Dear TDWG List Members ----- Good news! Registration is now open for the conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio), at http://ievobio.org/register.html . iEvoBio aims to be a forum bringing together biologists working in evolution, systematics, and biodiversity, with software developers and mathematicians. The goal of iEvoBio is both to catalyse the development of new tools, and to increase awareness of the possibilities offered by existing technologies (ranging from standards and reusable toolkits to mega-scale data analysis to rich visualization). The inaugural meeting in 2010 (see http://ievobio.org/2010) attracted over 300 participants. The 2-day meeting will take place June 21-22, 2011, in Norman, OK, jointly with the 2011 Evolution Meetings as a satellite conference. The event will feature traditional elements, including a keynote presentation at the beginning of each day and contributed talks, as well as more dynamic and interactive elements, including a challenge, lightning talk-style sessions, a software bazaar, and Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings. The topic of this year's challenge is Data Integration. Cash prizes will be awarded for first place ($1,000) and runner-up entries. The winning entries will be selected by a vote of the iEvoBio meeting participants. More details about the challenge will be provided in a separate announcement. Attendees can register jointly for Evolution and iEvoBio at a discount, or only for the iEvoBio conference. For more information about registration, venue, travel, or accommodations please visit the Evolution 2011 website at http://www.evolution2011.ou.edu/. More details about the program and guidelines for contributing content are available at http://ievobio.org . You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/iEvoBio , or subscribe to the low-traffic iEvoBio announcements mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/ievobio-announce . iEvoBio is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in partnership with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and the Systematic Biologists (SSB). Additional support has been provided by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The iEvoBio 2011 Organizing Committee: Rob Guralnick (University of Colorado at Boulder) (Co-Chair) Cynthia Parr (Encyclopedia of Life) (Co-Chair) Dawn Field (UK National Environmental Research Center) Mark Holder (University of Kansas) Hilmar Lapp (NESCent) Rod Page (University of Glasgow)

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Pre-announcement: EPIC PID User Forum 2011
by Yde de Jong 10 Jan '11

10 Jan '11

Pre-announcement EPIC PID User Forum 2011 On April 12 and 13, 2011, the second EPIC User Forum will be held at SARA on Science Park Amsterdam. EPIC is an abbreviation of European Persistent Identifier Consortium. The first forum took place on April 19 and 20, 2009 in Göttingen, Germany. EPIC is a joint venture of CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd. (Helsinki, Finland), GWDG – Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen, and SARA Computing and Networking Services. Aim of the EPIC User Forum The consortium aims to offer European scientists a Persistent Identifier (PID) infrastructure. Persistent Identifiers are unique markers, which can be used to identify digital documents (e.g. text files, web pages, photographs, films, sound files), or specific objects (e.g. paintings, sculptures), so that they can always be traced, even if they have been moved to a different location, or if their URL has changed. It is important that the solution is sustainable over time (persistent). The international collaboration of various institutes in EPIC also stands for robustness in organizational terms, since the user of this service is not dependent on one organization. Program A program committee is busy preparing the EPIC User Forum 2011, which will consist of two parts: a technical part and a part on policy development. The technical program will focus among others on: Providing information on PID’s Explaining current and future services of EPIC Identifying the needs and demands of existing and future users Policy issues, financing, etc. will be discussed as well during this forum. Given the international character, the event will be in English. Registration You will receive notice as soon as the program has been finalized and the event is open for registration. Until then, please contact epic(a)sara.nl. Participation is free. If you know people who might be interested in attending the EPIC 2011 User Forum, please forward this message to them. I look forward to welcoming you at this evert! Kind regards, Pieter van Beek <pieterb(a)sara.nl> SARA Computing and Networking

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Biodiversity Informatics position in Cambridge, MA on FilteredPush project
by Bob Morris 20 Dec '10

20 Dec '10

On behalf of the FilteredPush project, I enclosed this programming job announcement. Interested programmers should send questions directly to James Macklin jmacklin(a)oeb.harvard.edu -Bob Morris ==================== Dear Colleagues, We have a second position available for a programmer on our NSF-funded Filtered Push project (http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush). This position will address mainly client-side applications. A successful applicant will have several years of experience as a contributor in managed team projects. The description is copied below and can be accessed on Harvard's Employment website at http://www.employment.harvard.edu/ , selecting "Administrative/Staff Jobs (External Candidates)" then selecting "Searching Openings" then searching on: Auto req ID: 22338BR We will begin evaluation of applicants immediately in the new year and hope to have a person on board as soon as possible. If you have any questions feel free to contact me. Happy Holidays, James -- James Macklin, Ph.D. Director of Collections and Informatics Harvard University Herbaria 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138 Ph. (617) 496-1566; Fax. (617) 495-9484 http://www.huh.harvard.edu/ ----- Business Title: Project Programmer School/Unit: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Location: USA - MA - Cambridge Job Function: Information Technology Time Status: Full-time Department: Harvard University Herbaria Salary Grade: 056 Union: 00 - Non Union, Exempt or Temporary Duties & Responsibilities Reporting to the Director of Collections and Informatics at the Harvard University Herbaria (HUH), on a 3-year, NSF-funded project entitled Filtered Push Network, this position will develop a production quality implementation of the open source Filtered Push Network software (currently prototyped based on a previous NSF award; http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush). Develop and extend clients for the network software, architecture, front-end (UI) coding for various clients; in addition to design and coding for web service layers. NOTE: This is a three-year appointment. Basic Qualifications Bachelor's degree. At least three years of IT project management experience. Additional Qualifications Some familiarity with biology, especially botany, would be an asset. Familiarity with Agile programming methods. Able to work independently. Java skills with recent 1.5 and 1.6 experience, Java Enterprise Edition technologies including JPA and JMS, Web applications: HTML,PHP, Perl, AJAX, Peer-to-peer networking architectures, Familiarity with relational databases: MySQL, Oracle, Java XML databinding frameworks, Java persistence frameworks: Hibernate RDF and Semantic Web technologies. Additional Information All formal offers will be made by FAS Human Resources. The Filtered Push network software addresses three critical issues with data in current distributed networks of species-occurrence data, as in all scientific data: correcting the errors, maintaining currency, and assessing fitness for use. This project will build a continuous quality control system for such distributed heterogeneous data sets. We will expand our current prototype to develop software that provides for networks allowing data providers and consumers to define potential errors in data, develop metrics for those errors, analyze distributed data to detect potential errors, and close the quality management cycle by providing a network architecture to move assertions about data quality such as corrections back to the curators of the original distributed data sets. Harvard University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer --

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Invitation to connect on LinkedIn
by Peter DeVries 13 Dec '10

13 Dec '10

LinkedIn ------------ I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - Peter Peter DeVries Ph.D. Dissertator at Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin Area Confirm that you know Peter DeVries https://www.linkedin.com/e/-nzx5ld-ghnv05rl-5z/isd/2020277146/HN_MFK8A/ -- (c) 2010, LinkedIn Corporation

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GBIF white paper on Knowledge Organisation Systems - Call for comments on draft document
by Éamonn Ó Tuama (GBIF) 25 Nov '10

25 Nov '10

[Apologies for cross posting] Last September, GBIF convened a group to prepare a white paper on Knowledge Organisation Systems (i.e., Controlled Vocabularies, Ontologies, Thesauri, etc.) for biodiversity informatics (see http://www.gbif.org/communications/news-and-events/showsingle/article/gbif-p osition-paper-on-vocabulariesontologies/). A draft of this paper is now available for review. You are invited to review (or circulate for review to interested colleagues) the draft document available for download from the GBIF Community Site: http://bit.ly/GBIFKOS_Comments. Instructions for providing feedback are included there. Regrettably, the time for initial public comment is short. Anything not received by December 7, 2010 will not influence the final draft of the White Paper, though will remain available for GBIF to consider as it acts on the White Paper recommendations. With regards, Éamonn Ó Tuama [On behalf of Robert A. Morris, GBIFKOS White Paper Convener] _______________________________________________ Éamonn Ó Tuama, M.Sc., Ph.D. (eotuama(a)gbif.org), Senior Programme Officer, Inventory, Discovery, Access (IDA), Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, DENMARK Phone: +45 3532 1494; Fax: +45 3532 1480

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FW: US Government Policy on Scientific Collections
by Weitzman, Anna 20 Oct '10

20 Oct '10

Forwarding as this may be of interest outside the US. A new policy on scientific collections has been issued by Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. This builds on the work of the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections (IWGSC), and in setting targets for the ongoing work of the IWGSC and federal agencies, further raises the profile of scientific collections. The policy can be found on the OSTP website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp-2010-sci… On the international scene, the organization of the International Scientific Collections initiative (SciColl) under the auspices of the OECD Global Science Forum continues. Watch for announcements from this group soon. More information can be found at http://www.scicoll.org Both IWGSC and SciColl are looking forward to working with the broader scientific collections communities in implementing their goals. Scott Miller Co-chair, IWGSC Deputy Under Secretary for Science, Smithsonian Institution

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EOL Rubenstein Fellows Competition - deadline 30 Sept 2010
by Gail Kampmeier 13 Sep '10

13 Sep '10

EOL Rubenstein Fellows Competition Richard Allen, a Presidential Management Fellow with the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) working out of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, contacted me to help spread the word about an opportunity for early career folks and mentors in the EOL Rubenstein Fellows Competition http://www.eol.org/content/page/fellows, whose deadline has been extended to 30 Sept. 2010. Please help spread the word to those who might be interested in this great opportunity! AND Reviewers Needed Tanya Dewey, the Fellows Coordinator, is also looking for reviewers of the applications in the following disciplines: conservation biology invasive species fungi insects arachnids bacteria protozoa fish (bony, lobe-finned, sharks and rays, anything!) crustaceans algae cnidarians sponges or, basically, any invertebrate group! Reviewer commitment would be to review up to 10 proposals and provide comments. Proposals are 2 pages plus supporting documents and the reviews would take place in October. Selection Committee If you would like to be on the selection committee, a bit more work would be involved, requiring more reviews and a half day meeting to make final decisions. Contact Tanya for additional information tdewey(a)eol.org. I hope you will consider encouraging a promising young professional to apply for this fellowship and/or volunteer to take part in the review process! Cheers! Gail +++++++ If you build castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. Henry David Thoreau Gail E. Kampmeier Illinois Natural History Survey Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign +++++++

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GBIF Knowledge Organization survey
by Bob Morris 07 Sep '10

07 Sep '10

An earlier somewhat erroneous, version of this escaped to tdwg(a)lists.tdwg.org. If you are forwarding it, please use this one. Apologies for deluging you....Bob Morris Dear colleague, The team listed below is charged by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) with developing a position paper about its future needs for Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), a rubric which includes thesauri, controlled vocabularies, ontologies, gazetteers, and other such resources. The paper will cover tools, impediments to deployment, training requirements, etc. After we draft it, the position paper will be put forth for a period of public comment before final recommendations to GBIF. In order to put together the position paper, we solicit opinions, experiences, needs, and resources already in place about Knowledge Organization for biodiversity research. Please go to http://surveymonkey.com/GBIFKOSurvey to participate in the survey. We especially value your input about points you feel the survey doesn’t cover. Please feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues or mailing lists you think relevant, hopefully to people who may not have seen it already. Thanks GBIF KOS position paper team Bob Morris, Convenor, Terry Catapano, Donald Hobern, Hilmar Lapp, Norman Morrison, Natasha Noy, Mark Schildhauer, Dave Thau September 7, 2010 -- Robert A. Morris Emeritus Professor of Computer Science UMASS-Boston 100 Morrissey Blvd Boston, MA 02125-3390 Associate, Harvard University Herbaria email: morris.bob(a)gmail.com web: http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/ web: http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram phone (+1) 857 222 7992 (mobile)

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Survey on biodiversity Knowledge Organization
by Bob Morris 07 Sep '10

07 Sep '10

Dear colleague, The team listed below is charged by the Global Biological Information Facility (GBIF) with developing a position paper about its future needs for Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), a rubric which includes thesauri, controlled vocabularies, ontologies, gazetteers, and other such resources. The paper will cover tools, impediments to deployment, training requirements, etc. After we draft it, the position paper will be put forth for a period of public comment before final recommendations to GBIF. In order to put together the position paper, we solicit opinions, experiences, needs, and resources already in place about Knowledge Organization for biodiversity research. Please go to http://surveymonkey.com/GBIFKOSurvey to participate in the survey. We especially value your input about points you feel the survey doesn’t cover. Please feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues or mailing lists you think relevant, hopefully to people who may not have seen it already. Thanks GBIF KOS position paper team Bob Morris, Convenor, Terry Catapano, Donald Hobern, Hilmar Lapp, Norman Morrison, Natasha Noy, Mark Schildhauer, Dave Thau September 7, 2010 -- Robert A. Morris Emeritus Professor of Computer Science UMASS-Boston 100 Morrissey Blvd Boston, MA 02125-3390 Associate, Harvard University Herbaria email: morris.bob(a)gmail.com web: http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/ web: http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram phone (+1) 857 222 7992 (mobile)

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