TCN Resources

How this resource might be useful: These resources are an at-a-glance introduction to existing Thematic Collections Networks (TCNs), including a contact (with their email) who has volunteered to answer questions for each project, and some rudimentary information about the organisms in their proposal. This information may be useful to anyone writing a proposal, interested to see what others are doing, with what digitization technology; or who has recently received funding and is looking for digitization tips and advice from like-minded people.

Brief background: NSF's Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections (ADBC) initiative is funding iDigBio to be the hub to serve the digitized collections from TCNs projects (networks of institutions organized around a theme). Sometimes the theme includes a research question. RDCNs ('Regional' Digitization Collections Networks (managed by Collections in Support of Biological Research (CSBR))) are like a TCN, but not so closely tied managerially to iDigBio and the TCNs. As the hub, iDigBio seeks to serve all digitized specimens, not only those created by the ADBC program.

References: Intro to iDigBio (from SPNHC 2013) https://www.idigbio.org/sites/default/files/workshop-presentations/spnhc2013/SPNHC_IntroToiDigBioJM.pdf

Anyone seeking information about ADBC, its grand challenges, or how to get involved in this funding stream should look on the NSF website for the solicitations:

• ADBC: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11567/nsf11567.htm
• CSBR: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11558/nsf11558.htm

Details about writing a proposal to the NSF ADBC program for digitization funding see here

ADBC Annual Report Info Sheet

Guidelines for Annual Reporting Requirements for Lead Proposal PIs and Collaborative Proposal PIs at iDigBio, TCN and PEN locations. ADBC Annual Report Info Sheet

TCN Bi-Monthly Reports to iDigBio

• Form for TCN Bi-Monthly Reports
• Bi-Monthly Report Archive

Reporting Process for TCNs:
Bi-Monthly:

• For iDigBio: TCN Lead PI submits reports bi-monthly using our online form: Online Form for TCN Bi-Monthly Reports

Collect info from all members and compile into one bi-monthly report.

Annually: (we provide this for your edification, note that no annual report is due to iDigBio from the TCNs)

• For NSF: Each institution that received funding will need to submit their own report. The TCN Lead PI submits a report of their own activities AND the whole TCN activities.

For further details see : NSF Annual Report Info Sheet

TCN Lightning Round Progress Reports at Summit 3, November 2013

Each TCN gave a succinct digitization progress report: https://www.idigbio.org/content/idigbio-summit-iii-0

Summit 4, October 2014

This page has recordings from most of the sessions, including the TCNs: Day 1 recordings

TCNs at a Glance

Count Description	Count
unique funded TCN/PEN (ADBC) institutions (tip: some institution have more than one TCN/PEN)	268
total collaborators committed to contributing data (see exceptions in roles below, e.g., assisting data contributors) among the 13 TCNs	438
participating in 'unfunded contributor' role (perhaps because they had digitized data/images ready)	40
outreach contributors (no data)	2
in some sort of advisory capacity, e.g., FilteredPush, Symbiota, Citizen Science (no data)	9
foreign participants - among the 'unfunded contributor' above (Copenhagen, Oslo, Bergen, Uppsala, + 2 from Canada)	6

TCN	Date	#Collaborators / Ingested so far	Specimen records ingested	Media ingested
Fossil Insects	2013 - 2017	9 / 0	0	0
Great Lakes Invasives	2014 - 2017	29 / 0	0	0
InvertEBase	2014 - 2018	7 / 0	0	0
InvertNet	2011 - 2015	15 / 1	375,845	2654
Lichens & Bryophytes	2011 - 2015	92 / 79	3,737,529	1,887,147
MaCC	2012 - 2015	44 / 38	1,763,475	503,779
Macroalgae	2013 - 2017	49 / 2	56,493	55,765
NEVP	2012 - 2016	24 / 7	207,470	170,902
Paleoniches	2012 - 2015	8 / 4	604,262	0
SCAN	2012 - 2015	27 / 26	1,081,188	124,778
SERNEC	2014 - 2018	96 / 4	179,193	0
Tri-trophic	2011 - 2015	31 / 1	373,707	0
VACS	2013 - 2017	7 / 0	0	0
TOTAL		438 / 161	8,379,162	2,745,025

(Updated monthly :: May, 2015)

Below is a table of individual TCN project information. RDCNs are added below for completeness since they work closely with thematic networks. For more iDigBio TCN info, see the master map for which institutions are in the project: https://www.idigbio.org/content/collaborating-institutions, and see each institution's map (links found below) for project details of the TCN and a link to their ingested dataset, if applicable. For a complete list of data publishers see: https://www.idigbio.org/portal/publishers

Note: the number of anticipated collaborators, specimens and images to be digitized is approximate, and based on the text in the proposal.

TCN	Date	Contact with Email	Digitization Methodology	Software Interface to iDigBio	Organisms	# of Specimens/Images	# of Collaborators
InvertNet (website)	2011 - 2015	Christopher Dietrich	robotic scanning of vials, slides and drawers, crowd-sourcing of label data from images		arthropods	56.1M / .89M	16 (1 PEN) (Map)
Tri-trophic (TTD) (website)	2011 - 2015	Katja Seltmann Toby Schuh (insects), Rob Naczi (plants)	imaging herbarium sheets with the Photo eBox Plus	Arthropod Easy Capture, Symbiota	insects (Hemiptera, Hymenoptera) and vascular plants	1.6M (insects) 6.1M (plants) / 611,000	32 (Map)
Lichens & Bryophytes (LBCC) (TCN website), (lichen website), (bryophyte website)	2011 - 2015	Corinna Gries, Tom Nash‎‎, Ed Gilbert‎	label imaging, using OCR for data capture workflow	Symbiota	lichens & bryophytes	2.3M / 2.3M	76 (4 PENs) (Map)
New England Vascular Plants (NEVP) (TCN website), (CNH website)	2012 - 2016	Patrick Sweeney	robotic scanning apparatus for herbarium sheets, specimen-by-specimen label data capture	Symbiota, EMu	vascular plants	1.29M / 1.29M	19 (Map)
PaleoNICHES (TCN website)	2012 - 2015	Bruce Lieberman	specimen-by-specimen label data capture	Specify	fossils: arthropods, brachiopods, echinoderms, and mollusks	650K / 3600	8 (2 PENs) (Map)
MacroFungi Collection Consortium (MaCC) (TCN website),(mycoportal website)	2012 - 2015	Barbara Thiers	label imaging, crowd-sourcing of label data	Symbiota	macrofungi	1.39M / 1.3M	38 (Map)
Southwest Collections of Arthropods (SCAN) (TCN website), (website)	2012 - 2015	Neil Cobb	Visionary Digital workflow, specimen-by-specimen label data capture, plus ~16K specimen image suites (~40K images)	Symbiota	ground dwelling arthropods	.73M / 15,125	16 (2 PENs) (Map)
Fossil Insect Collaborative (FIC) (website)	2013 - 2017	Dena Smith	Visionary Digital workflow, most specimen data already captured	Specify, EMu and other (for home institutions) - developing the iDigPaleo Portal for our main interface.	fossil insects	500k/200k	7 (Map)
Vouchered Animal Communication Signals (VACS)	2013 - 2017	Michael Webster	digitizing analog sound recordings, imaging specimens & labels		birds, frogs, fish and insects	58,374 / 22,939	7 (Map)
Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium (MHC) (website)	2013 - 2017	Chris Neefus	imaging herbarium sheets with the Photo eBox Plus	Symbiota	macroalgae	1.14M / 1.14M	50 (Map)
Great Lakes Invasives	2014 - 2017	Ken Cameron	imaging herbarium sheets and animal specimen lots with the Photo eBox Plus	Symbiota	fish, clams, snails, mussels, algae, plants	1.73M	29 (Map)
InvertEBase	2014 - 2018	Petra Sierwald	development of various workflows: data capture from labels; data capture from label images; data capture via voice recognition and OCR	Symbiota	invertebrates, insects arachnids, mollusks	>2M	7 (Map)
SERNEC	2014 - 2018	Zack Murrell		Symbiota	plants	>3M	45 (Map)

RDCNs and others at a Glance

RDCN	Contact with Email	Methodology	Software	Organisms	# of Participants
VertNet (website)	Dave Bloom	aggregator / facilitator		mammals, birds, fish, herps	63 institutions, 179 collections: mammals (46), birds (47), fish (26), herps (44), paleo (8), tissue (4), special (4) (as of 12Aug2014)
Consortium of California Herbaria (CCH) (website)	David Baxter	aggregator / facilitator	custom	vascular plants	32
Fishnet2 Collaborative Georeferencing	Hank Bart, Jr.	georeferencing		fish
Mississippi Herbaria Consortium (Magnolia grandiFLORA)	Lucile McCook	aggregator / facilitator	Silver Biology, Specify	plants	8
Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria (website)	Ben Legler	aggregator / facilitator		plants	57
Texas Oklahoma Regional Consortia of Herbaria (TORCH) (website)	Wayne Elisens	aggregator / facilitator		plants	9
Wisconsin Flora (WisFlora) (website)	Ken Cameron	aggregator / facilitator		algae, fungi, lichens, bryophytes and vascular plants	26

TCN Social Media Resources

TCN Blogs

• TTD blog

TCN Facebook

• TTD Facebook

Other resources

• Project Management Resources