IDigBio Working Groups

Overview

iDigBio supports a number of Working Groups. Several working groups are focused on the delivery of short-term objectives, while other standing Working Groups are tasked with ongoing research, development, and improvement activities. This page provides an overview of both current (active) and disbanded (inactive) Working Groups.

The section "Overlap with Other Working Groups" should be used to list subject areas that may duplicate some effort from another Working Group. When Working Group activities stray into these overlapping subject areas then collaboration between working groups is warranted for those tasks.

Active Working Groups

Augmenting OCR (aOCR)

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	Bryan Heidorn, (Chair), Univ of AZ Deborah Paul (Co-Chair), iDigBio User Services Robert Anglin, (Symbiota, LBCC TCN) Jason Best (BRIT Apiary) Renato Figueiredo, iDigBio IT Ed Gilbert (Symbiota, LBCC TCN) Nathan Gnanasambandam, (Xerox) Stephen Gottschalk, (Tri-Trophic TCN, Macrofungi TCN) (NYBG) Elspeth Haston,(Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) Peter Lang, ( ABBYY ) Gil Nelson, iDigBio Digitization Nahil Sobh, (InvertNet TCN) Kimberly Watson, (Tri-Trophic TCN, Macrofungi TCN) (NYBG) Qianjin Zhang, (Univ. of AZ)
Mission & Scope	Engage experts in the biodiversity and information technology fields to identify opportunities to broadly implement existing effective OCR tools and enhance existing Machine and Natural Language Processing technologies to meet the needs of the biodiversity community. Want to know more? Contact Bryan Heidorn or Deborah Paul or any other member of the working group. We'd like to hear from you!
Overlap with Other Working Groups	Needing access to the specimen label images on the iDigBio server, the aOCR working group overlaps with the cyberinfrastructure working group. This includes OS issues as well as hardware minimum requirements necessary for whatever hack-a-thon type activities the aOCR group persues.
Links	Augmenting OCR and NLP Forum Augmenting OCR Working Group Wiki Augmenting OCR Working Group Resources Augmenting OCR Listserve Augmenting OCR Adobe Connect Meeting Space Adobe Connect Recorded Content Announcing the iDigBio Augmenting OCR Working Group Meeting October 1 - 2, Gainesville, Florida All iDigBio Workshops in Summary

Cyberinfrastructure

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	Andréa Matsunaga (Co-Lead), iDigBio IT Joanna McCaffrey (Co-Lead), iDigBio Program Manager Renato Figueiredo, iDigBio IT Alex Thompson, iDigBio IT Jiangyan Xu, iDigBio IT Guillaume Jimenez, iDigBio IT Michael Bevans, Tri-tropic TCN IT James Beach, Paleoniches TCN IT/Co-PI, University of Kansas Andrew Brown KE Software Edward Gilbert, Lichens & Bryophytes, Macrofungi and SCAN TCNs IT, Symbiota Corinna Gries, Lichens & Bryophytes TCN, PI Tony Kirchgessner, Tri-trophic TCN IT, NYBG Casey McLaughlin, iDigBio IT Nahil Sobh, InvertNet TCN IT, Co-PI Omar Sobh, InvertNet TCN IT Andrew Brown, KE software
Mission & Scope	Define, document and test iDigBio service Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and appliances. The first phase will focus on data ingestion APIs and appliances considering TCN use cases. Definition and documentation of potential services and appliances for OCR and georeferencing are left to the respective working groups. Definition of data structure for ingestion is left to MISC working group.
Overlap with Other Working Groups
Links	Cyberinfrastructure Working Group Wiki

Developing Robust Object to Image to Data (DROID1)

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	Gil Nelson, iDigBio Digitization Deborah Paul, iDigBio User Services Dorothy Allard, UVM Anne Barber, ASU Edward Gilbert, Lichens & Bryophytes, Macrofungi and SCAN TCNs IT, Symbiota Les Landrum, ASU Austin Mast, FSU Paul J. Morris , Harvard Amanda K. Neill, Texas A&M University Richard Rabeler, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Patrick Sweeney, New England Vascular Plants TCN Co-PI Yale - Peabody
Mission & Scope	The Flat Sheets and Packets Working Group (DROID1) is devoting its attention to developing workflow modules and tasks recommendations for vascular and non-vascular plant specimens.
Overlap with Other Working Groups	See WG for DROID2 and DROID3
Links	Wiki

Developing Robust Object to Image to Data (DROID2)

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	Gil Nelson, iDigBio Digitization Deborah Paul, iDigBio User Services Talia Karim Univ. of Colorado Edward Riley Katja Seltmann AMNH Lawrence Gall Yale, Peabody Petra Sierwald FMNH Nico Franz ASU Margaret Thayer FMNH Jennifer Thomas John Oswald
Mission & Scope	The Pinned Specimens in Trays and Drawers Working Group is devoting its attention to developing workflow modules and task lists for digitizing dry, pinned specimens.
Overlap with Other Working Groups	See WG for DROID1 and DROID3
Links	Wiki Photo - First Meeting of DROID2 Working Group

Developing Robust Object to Image to Data (DROID3)

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	Gil Nelson, iDigBio Digitization Deborah Paul, iDigBio User Services
Mission & Scope	The working group will devote its attention to specimens in jars and of greater 3D dimensionality.
Overlap with Other Working Groups	See WG for DROID1 and DROID2
Links	Wiki

Georeferencing Working Group (GWG)

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	John Wieczorek (Berkeley, MVZ) Mary Barkworth (Utah State Univ, UTC) Reed Beaman David Bloom (Berkeley, MVZ) Una Farrell (Paleoniches TCN, Co-PI) Paul Heinrich (SCAN TCN, Co-PI) Gil Nelson, iDigBio Digitization Deborah Paul, iDigBio User Services Nelson Rios (Tulane, GeoLocate) Carol Spencer (Berkeley, MVZ)
Mission & Scope	Our first goals are to start building a community of expert Georeferencing trainers in a workshop to be held October 8 - 12, 2012 and advance the capabilities of Georeferencing tools. Want to know more? Contact Deborah Paul or other members of the working group. We'd love to hear from you.
Overlap with Other Working Groups
Links	Georeferencing Wiki Georeferencing Resources Georeferencing Discussion Forum Georeferencing Working Group Wiki GWG listserve Announcing iDigbio's Train the Trainers workshop October 8 - 12, 2012 Materials from all iDigBio Workshops

Minimum Information Standards, Authority Files, & Semantics (MISC)

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	Gil Nelson, iDigBio Digitization (Co-Lead) Katja Seltmann, AMNH (Co-Lead) Dorothy Allard, UVM Reed Beaman Stan Blum John Deck Andrea Matsunaga, iDigBio IT Joanna McCaffrey, iDigBio Biodiversity Informatics Paul J. Morris Deborah Paul, iDigBio User Services Dean Pentcheff Petra Sierwald, FMNH
Mission & Scope	1) Establish the working group and its goals, with the guidance of participants from the MISC breakout group from iDigBio's It Standards workshop. 2) Document basic assumptions underpinning a minimal information for scientific collections expectation. 3) Develop a document outlining and providing a rationale for required, minimal, desired, and supplementary data elements to be provided by iDigBio contributors. 4) Develop guidelines for data validation, training and assistance to iDigBio contributors for configuring data for ingestion into the iDigBio portal
Overlap with Other Working Groups	The overlap between the MISC and Authority Files Working groups prompted merging into a single working group.
Links	Wiki

Paleontology

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	Bruce Lieberman (Lead), University of Kansas Laurie Anderson, South Dakota School of Mines David Bloom, VertNet, UC Berkeley Greg Dietl, PRI Jere Lipps, John Cooper Museum Bruce MacFadden, FLMNH Timothy Rowe, University of Texas Katja Seltmann, AMNH Dena Smith, Colorado Kathleen Springer, San Bernardino County Museum Barbara Thiers, NYBG Sophie Warny, LSU Tim White, Yale
Mission & Scope	This group is currently being formed. One of the group's first tasks will be to define a Mission and Scope. Broadly, the group will maintain awareness of digitization activities and needs within the Paleontology community, and promote communication between Neontology/Paleontology/Information Technology partners.
Overlap with Other Working Groups
Links	Listserv , Discussion Forum , Working Group Wiki

Public Participation in Digitization

Data Field	Details
Status	Active
Members	Austin Mast (Lead) Michael Denslow Appalachian State Univ. Betty Dunckel FLMNH Bruce MacFadden, FLMNH Tom Nash, ASU Gil Nelson, iDigBio Digitization Deborah Paul, iDigBio User Services Nelson Rios, (Tulane, GeoLocate) Andrew Sallans Blanka Shaw , Duke Jon Shaw Barbara Thiers, NYBG Matt von Konrat, FMNH
Mission & Scope	Identify and improve aspects of biodiversity digitization workflows that can be newly architected or enhanced to take advantage of public participation.
Overlap with Other Working Groups
Links	Listserv , Working Group Wiki , Joint Public Participation in Digitization/Eductation & Outreach Workshop

Inactive Working Groups

Authority Files

Data Field	Details
Status	Merged: The Authority Files Working Group has merged with the MISC Working Group, with Katja Seltmann and Gil Nelson as Co-Leads. See below: Minimum Information Standards, Authority Files, & Semantics.
Original Members (Now Included Below)	Greg Riccardi (Lead) Dorothy Allard Stan Blum Andrea Matsunaga Paul J. Morris Gil Nelson Deborah Paul Katja Seltmann, AMNH Dean Pentcheff Petra Sierwald
Mission & Scope
Overlap with other Working Groups
Links

Intellectual Property Policy

Data Field	Details
Status	Inactive
Members	Gil Nelson, iDigBio Digitization (Lead) Chris Dietrich John Fraser David Giblin Deborah Paul iDigBio User Services Katja Schultz Katja Seltmann, AMNH Paul Stern
Mission & Scope	Produce a clear Intellectual Property Policy to establish data ownership rights and data re-use requirements related to content presented via iDigBio by collections and institutions.
Overlap with Other Working Groups	None identified
Links	Final Published Document Note: This document is open for community comment