September 2009 - tdwg - lists.tdwg.org

Public Review of TAPIR
by Piers Higgs 15 Oct '09

15 Oct '09

Public Review of TAPIR TDWG is pleased to announce the commencement of the Public Review of the TDWG Access Protocol for Information Retrieval TAPIR - a method for sharing biodiversity information. Since being officially put forward as a draft, TAPIR has undergone a peer review, a review by the TDWG Executive and multiple revisions. Open Invitation: We invite all who may contribute and/or consume biodiversity information to examine this proposed standard during the Public Review period from 10th September through at least until the 10th November 2009. How to Participate: You can participate in the review of TAPIR in two ways; either through lodging a comment through TDWG's Open Journal System, or you can take the Microsoft Word document and edit it with track changes and resubmit it to the TAPIR Wiki space. To post comments to the Open Journal System (that can be anonymous), go to http://www.tdwg.org/stdtrack/article/view/449/39 <http://www.tdwg.org/stdtrack/article/view/449/39> . On the right hand side of the page is a link to add a comment. At the previous URL, you can also download a copy of the Microsoft Word format specification. Once you have downloaded it, turn on track changes and make your notes and comments. You can then submit that file at http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/TAPIR/TapirReview <http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/TAPIR/TapirReview> . Please DO NOT add any comments to the Wiki page, only via the OJS page. Questions about the process should be directed to me at piers(at)gaiaresources.com.au. Please share this opportunity for public comment and review with others you think may be interested. Acknowledgements: I'd like to thank the authors, the anonymous reviewers and the members of the Executive Committee who reviewed the standard. In addition, the guidance of Lee Belbin through the review process has been invaluable and greatly appreciated. Links expanded: TAPIR Specification in HTML - http://www.tdwg.org/dav/subgroups/tapir/1.0/docs/tdwg_tapir_specificatio n_2009-09-08.htm <http://www.tdwg.org/dav/subgroups/tapir/1.0/docs/tdwg_tapir_specificati on_2009-09-08.htm> Official TAPIR Website - http://www.tdwg.org/subgroups/tapir/ <http://www.tdwg.org/subgroups/tapir/> Various TAPIR software packages - http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/TAPIR/TapirSoftware <http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/TAPIR/TapirSoftware> Subscribe to tdwg-tag - http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-tag Related Links: TDWG: http://www.tdwg.org/ <http://www.tdwg.org/> Other TDWG Standards: http://www.tdwg.org/standards/ <http://www.tdwg.org/standards/> TDWG Standards Track (in OJS): http://www.tdwg.org/stdtrack/index <http://www.tdwg.org/stdtrack/index> Apologies if you receive this multiple times from various mailing lists. Sincerely, Piers Higgs, Review Manager ------------------------------------------------------- Piers Higgs Gaia Resources p +61 8 92277309 m +61 411 754 006 w www.gaiaresources.com.au e piers(a)gaiaresources.com.au -------------------------------------------------------

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Charles Copp
by Adrian Rissone 27 Sep '09

27 Sep '09

It is with very deep sadness that I report the death of Charles Copp on Thursday September 24th 2009 after a long and valiant struggle against a brain tumour. Many people in our communities will have come across Charles in his varied career in geology, ecology, collections management and databasing, site recording, biodiversity informatics and countless other subjects. Those who spend any time with him will have discovered his extraordinary love of life and the world around him - and doubtless his equally extraordinary sense of humour! There will be a celebration of Charles' life in his home town of Clevedon, Somerset (UK), on October 8th. I will be pleased to pass on any thoughts you may wish to express to Charles' wife, Judy, and to discuss arrangements with you should you wish to attend on that day. I will also be gathering for Judy and the family memories, anecdotes and photographs of Charles on his many activities so I would be grateful for anything you can send me in the next few days. Please pass on this message to anyone who may have known Charles but is not likely to be a recipient of the TDWG or Taxacom mailing lists. Regards, Adrian Mr Adrian Rissone Department of Palaeontology Natural History Museum Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD United Kingdom E-mail: A.Rissone(a)nhm.ac.uk Executive Secretary Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG)

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Training for Scratchpads
by Dave Roberts 22 Sep '09

22 Sep '09

Dear all, apologies for cross-posting. A training course in the use of Scratchpads (http://scratchpads.eu) will be available immediately after the EDIT general meeting in Carvoeiro this December. The course is aimed at those who manage sites on behalf of their community (site maintainers). Note also that there will be a workshop in this year's TDWG meeting in Montpellier (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2009 ) about the logistics of maintaining your own Scratchpad server. EDIT will be funding participation in the general meeting for those at EDIT member institutions through your local team leader and this can be extended for an additional night to cover the training course. The deadline for travel funding is 16th October. Course registration is open until 1st December. To apply for training, go to http://scratchpads.eu/scratchpad-training-courses Cheers, Dave -- Dr D.McL. Roberts, Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5086 European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy Project, Coordinator WorkPackage 6 (Unifying Revisionary Taxonomy), Dept. Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD Great Britain Email: dmr(a)nomencurator.org Web page: http://scratchpads.eu Web page: http://www.editwebrevisions.info/ -- "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try and give it to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." [Steve Jobs, quoted in The Guardian, Technology Section, 25 June 09]. --

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TDWG 2009: Deadline for Early Registration extended!
by Adrian Rissone 14 Sep '09

14 Sep '09

TDWG 2009 (Montpellier, France, November 9-13) Apologies for cross-posting. Please note that Early Registration has been extended until October 1st at 09:00 French time (08:00 UTC). If you haven't already done so, please register as soon as possible for TDWG 2009 at https://webmail.nhm.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://www.regonline.c…. The conference web site (https://webmail.nhm.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.tdwg.org/con…) contains details about the meeting, travel, accommodation, Montpellier information including restaurants, history, excursions and our sponsors. NESCent Phyloinformatics VoCamp: Those interested in phyloinformatics data standards will be interested to note that, sponsored by NESCent, there will be a VoCamp held in association with, and partial incorporated into, the TDWG conference. The application deadline remains September 18, 2009. Please see here for details: https://webmail.nhm.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://docs.google.com/… Abstracts are required for all oral presentations, posters and computer demonstrations. Although verbal presentations are limited please note that we will also accept 'Contributed Abstracts' as we did for the first time for TDWG 2008, allowing your work to be published in the Proceedings of TDWG. Regards, Adrian Rissone Executive Secretary, TDWG

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TDWG 2009: Deadline for Early Registration approaching
by Adrian Rissone 11 Sep '09

11 Sep '09

TDWG 2009 (Montpellier, France, November 9-13) Apologies for cross-posting. Please note that Early Registration closes September 14 and abstract submission closes October 1. If you haven't already done so, please register for TDWG 2009 at https://www.regonline.com/TDWG2009. The conference web site (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2009/) contains details about the meeting, travel, accommodation, Montpellier information including restaurants, history, excursions and our sponsors. NESCent Phyloinformatics VoCamp: Those interested in phyloinformatics data standards will be interested to note that, sponsored by NESCent, there will be a VoCamp held in association with, and partial incorporated into, the TDWG conference. The application deadline is September 18, 2009. Please see here for details: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhdjhbvd_66gr5cdqfq Abstracts are required for all oral presentations, posters and computer demonstrations. Although verbal presentations are limited please note that we will also accept 'Contributed Abstracts' as we did for the first time for TDWG 2008, allowing your work to be published in the Proceedings of TDWG. Regards, Adrian Rissone Executive Secretary, TDWG

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TDWG 2009 (Montpellier, November 2009)
by Adrian Rissone 04 Sep '09

04 Sep '09

A message from the Chair of TDWG: Dear TDWG Members and Friends I know that I've been slack over the last few months. There has been a lot happening on the ALA and TDWG fronts that have been keeping me exceptionally busy, and time has run away. The TDWG 2009 Program and the TDWG 2009 Local Organizing Committees have been doing an excellent job in structuring the meeting. My thanks to both groups for the work they are going to ensure that this is the best TDWG meeting ever: an Olympian effort. Please note that Early Registration closes September 14 and abstract submission closes October 1. Abstracts are required for all oral presentations, posters and computer demonstrations. We will also accept 'Contributed Abstracts' as we did for the first time for TDWG 2008. If you haven't already done so, please register for TDWG 2009 at https://www.regonline.com/TDWG2009. The conference web site (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2009/) contains details about the meeting, travel, accommodation, Montpellier information including restaurants, history, excursions and our sponsors. If you have been approved for a presentation during a conference session, or wish to submit a 'Contributed Abstract', please follow the instructions at http://www.tdwg.org/conference2009/abstracts/. If you are not already a member of TDWG, please consider joining and supporting us (and being a member will also give you a discount on registration for TDWG 2009!). We really do need your support. There has been a range of happenings this year that are significant for TDWG. We are getting close to the ratification of NCD, Darwin Core, TAPIR and the LSID Applicability Statement. I'd like to see all of these as standards by TDWG 2009. The work of Neil Thomson, Wouter Addink, John Wieczorek, Gail Kampmeier, Renato De Giovanni, Piers Higgs, Kevin Richards and Ben Richardson to get us to this point has been exceptional. My thanks to each of you. Another significant event was e-Biosphere 2009 in London. This meeting provided a broad perspective on biodiversity informatics and identified TDWG as playing a significant role. Components of TDWG 2009 will attempt to progress issues raised in the e-Biosphere report. So, if you want to learn about biodiversity informatics in Agriculture, be a part of helping to share biodiversity data; learn about vocabularies, ontologies and LSIDs; listen to some wild (and not so wild) ideas; ask crazy (and not so crazy) questions of the gurus; figure out how to connect your data to the world; enjoy some exceptional food and wine, and of course, enjoy some excellent company and fascinating discussions, then join us in Montpellier. Donald Hobern TDWG Chairman

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