We are excited to announce the return of our popular professional development opportunity: Introduction to Biodiversity Specimen Digitization.
This free, online course is focused on introducing the creation of digital data about biodiversity specimens to those who are just beginning this activity.
The aims of the course are to empower participants with the knowledge and skills to (1) identify and describe relevant facets of information or potential information related to biodiversity specimens, (2) identify and describe common digitization protocols and best practices related to transcription, imaging, and georeferencing, (3) identify downstream uses that are relevant to digitization decision-making, (4) recognize basic principles of data management including the importance of identifiers, (5) identify collections management system options and the major differences among them, and (6) outline a digitization project, including quality control and a data management plan that includes data sharing.
This course is targeted at those already associated with a biodiversity collection, such as student technicians, collections management professionals, or curators. The course will be relevant to a diversity of collection types. Participants do not need prior knowledge of biodiversity informatics or specialized software.
The course will occur for four weeks, from October 3–26 (Monday and Wednesday), between 3:00–4:30 pm ET. You can expect to spend 1.5 hours daily (Monday and Wednesday) in synchronous meetings and as much as two additional hours of preparation time per week outside of class. So this is about a 20-hour time commitment. We expect to cap the course at 25 participants and will make admission decisions based on the relevance of the training to the future of the applicant’s organization and a desire to engage a diversity of perspectives. The course will be delivered in English. Those interested in participating from outside the US are welcome to apply.
You may apply to participate in this course at: https://forms.gle/ksndthU2D8JMieJg8.
Applications are due by 9:00 am ET on Tuesday, September 13.
Questions can be directed to Lauren Cohen (lcohen3@fsu.edu; iDigBio’s Workforce Development Manager) and Austin Mast (amast@fsu.edu; Director of iDigBio’s Digitization, Workforce Development, and Citizen Science Domain).
