Setting the Scene for ViBRANT – Strategy, Philosophy and Communication

Virtual BiodiversityViBRANT

Setting the Scene for ViBRANT

Vince SmithNatural History Museum, London

[email protected]

ViBRANTVirtual Biodiversity

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Outline

• Brief workpackage overviews

• Values / philosophy

• Outreach & communication Twitter

VBRANT.EU forum

Reporting deliverables


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WP1: Project managementNHM with HCMR, RBINS, UOXF, UvA, OU, PENSOFT

• Strategic Board

• Management Committee

• Workpackage leaders

• Project Partners

NETWORKING

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WP3: Training, outreach & community supportRBINS with VU, NHM, UNITS

• Training (RBINS / NHM) Training courses & online user support

• User study (VU) Sociological study of user needs & user metrics

• Outreach (RBINS / UNITS) Promotion activities & bug / feature request management

NETWORKING

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WP4: StandardisationUvA with JKI, PENSOFT, GBIF, BGBM

• Controlled vocabularies / ontologies (GBIF / JKI) Standardised & internationalised vocabularies

• Scratchpad common access point (BGBM) Search portal across all Scratchpad sites

• Standards control (UvA / BGBM / PENSOFT) API service enhancements & service catalogue

• Liaise with LifeWatch (UvA) Develop the LifeWatch service centre

NETWORKING

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WP8: Ecol. & conservation data mobalisationHCMR with MfN, Vizz, PENSOFT, GBIF

• Citizen science engagement (HCMR / PENSOFT) Scratchpad citizen science modules

• GBIF data annotation (GBIF) Tool to annotate observations from GBIF

• Visualisation tools (Vizz) Improved vis. of Scratchpad data plus mobile apps.

• Terrestrial data logging (MfN) Data logging tool

NETWORKING

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WP5: Data servicesUOXF with UPMC, JKI, Vizz, UdIR

• Phylogenetic analysis (UOXF) Tree building service integration

• Modeling & biodiversity metrics (UOXF / Vizz) Niche modeling of spp. distributions

• Key construction (UPMC / UdIR) Integration of Xper2 as a service

• Matrix data editing (JKI) Improving the matrix editor

SERVICE

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WP6: Scholarly publishingPENSOFT with NHM

• XML Publication workflows (PENSOFT / NHM) Scholarly publishing from a Scratchpad to Zookeys & Phytokeys

• Biodiversity data publishing (PENSOFT) “Publishing data” & pushing this outside ViBRANT

PD

FH

TM

LX

ML

SERVICE

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WP2: Technical architectureNHM with BGBM

• Distributed Scratchpad hosting (NHM / BGBM) Mirroring & failover

• Software module integration (NHM) Develop test & integrate consortium modules

• Sustainability plan (NHM) Costing & modeling ViBRANT sustainability options

RESEARCH

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WP7: Biodiversity literature accessOU with KIT, PENSOFT, NHM

• Community bibliography (OU) Papers tagged with taxon names

• Biodiversity lit. markup (KIT / OU / PENSOFT / NHM) sub-article level access to taxonomic literature

• Literature search (OU) Datamining biodiversity literature

RESEARCH

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Values / Philosophy


Why ViBRANT is (a bit) different

• Inclusiveness• Open Access• Prioritization• Problem solving• Scalability

• Simplicity • Stakeholder ownership• Standardization• Sustainability• Transparency

• Agility• Democratisation• Engagement• Equity• Flexibility

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Outreach & communicationThe need to talk - all feedback is good

• “Build it & they will come” doesn’t always work

“…the field [of biodiversity informatics] appears to be growing in a void of overarching, motivating questions, effectively making it a set of technologies in search of questions to address.”

Peterson et al. The big questions for biodiversity informatics.Systematics and Biodiversity. 2010

• We need to promote what we do via:• Help & support systems

• Training courses

• Sociological research & feedback

• Presentations, papers, blogs

• Promotional materials

• Representation on http://vbrant.eu

• Trifold-leaflets for each group of activities

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ViBRANT Trifold Promotional Leaflets

Materials needed ASAP

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Communication - Twitter140 characters or less

• Create an account in your name• “Tweet” what you are doing• Include @vbrant in your tweet• Include #wp[1-8] for your workpkg. • Tweet often!• Download an app.

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Communication - VBRANT.EUE-Mail integration in the forum

• http://vbrant.eu/forum• Each has its own e-mail address• Send via your registered e-mail address• Message attachments also sent, archived & backed up

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Reporting deliverables & milestonesCompleted via http://vbrant.eu/deadlines

• Find your deliverable or milestone

• Edit the record, adding links & reports• See what you are responsible for

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Setting the Scene for ViBRANT – Strategy, Philosophy and Communication

Technology

scratchpad data

scholarly publishing

project management nhm

data services uoxf

technical architecture

taxon names biodiversity

email integration

matrix editor service