At the last TDWG meeting in Sweden, the TDWG Data Quality Interest Group was formally established with Antonio Saraiva and myself as co-conveners.

We did not have a lot of time to meet in Sweden, but over 35 people have put their names down as being interested. We know that a lot of you were not able to attend the session n Data Quality because of parallel sessions or because you were not able to get to the TDWG meeting this year. We are looking for more people to work with us so that we can begin to make progress on this very important topic. I would thus encourage you to join the Google discussion group at http://community.gbif.org/pg/groups/21292/gbiftdwg-biodiversity-data-quality-interest-group/

I would also suggest that you look at some of the talks on Data Quality given at the TDWG meeting - they can be found at https://mbgserv18.mobot.org/ocs/index.php/tdwg/2014/schedConf/presentations

At the meeting we decided to set up three sub working groups; viz:

. Framework for Communication
. Tools, Services and Workflows
. Use Case Library/Competency

We did not give a lot of thought into the naming of these groups at the time, and that is one topic that needs further discussion.

We also need to develop a charter and work plan for the next twelve months for each of these working groups.

We also need to appoint a convenor for each working group so that the discussion can be kept rolling. If you are interested and prepared to do this, then please let Antonio or myself know.

Further information and discussions will be on the Google Groups so please keep up to date with progress there.

Arthur D. Chapman