Call for Applications: VertNet Biodiversity Informatics Training Workshop

We are excited to announce a call for applications for VertNet’s first biodiversity informatics workshop. Please share this information with your colleagues, students, friends, and anyone else whom you believe would be interested in this opportunity.

The Biodiversity Informatics Training Workshop (BITW), June 24-30, 2012, will provide participants with the training and experience to work with primary biodiversity data sources and new tools necessary to become proficient in biodiversity informatics and conduct biodiversity research. Led by experienced informaticists and researchers, the BITW will emphasize the use and analysis of aggregated biodiversity data from VertNet, and other sources, for a wide of variety of research.

During the course of five days, participants will work closely with trainers to address compelling biodiversity research questions, focusing on the entire scope of a research project, from initial data acquisition to tools for data evaluation to analysis and finally, project dissemination and outreach. The workshop will include large and small group exercises on a common curriculum as well as the opportunity for participants to discuss and explore individual research questions with trainers. During the workshop, participants will explore and utilize: Data sources for discovery, acquisition, data standards, database creation and organization (e.g., VertNet, GBIF, Darwin Core) Organization, analysis, work flow, and data improvement tools Biodiversity measurement and analyses techniques (e.g., species richness, turnover) Species distribution modeling approaches Dissemination, education and outreach mechanisms (e.g., citizen science) The goal of the workshop is to provide conceptual frameworks and hands-on experience on a suite of data sources such as VertNet (including MaNIS, FishNet, HerpNET, and ORNIS), EOL and Map of Life, and new and developing software tools such as BioGeomancer, GEOLocate, DivaGIS, Quantum GIS, R Statistics, ArcGIS, ModEco, Maxent, and OpenModeller.

At the end of the week, participants should leave the workshop with: an understanding of the evolution of, and the work flows within, a research project, a set of basic skills to use data repositories and informatics and analytic tools, and understand which tools are appropriate for tasks knowledge of the abundant resources and additional training available. Who should attend? Advanced undergraduates, recent post baccalaureates, and early-career graduate students currently working, or interested in a career in a biodiversity related field, including, but not limited to, ecology, conservation, geography, biology, environmental science, computer science, and library science.

Workshop Selection and Support Acceptance to the BITW is a competitive process and the workshop is limited to 25 participants. All applications materials and recommendations must be received by 11:59pm PT on January 10, 2012 for consideration. Accepted participants will be notified in March 2012. Individuals selected for participation will receive support to cover reasonable costs for transportation, accommodations, and per diem. Accommodations will be provided on the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB) campus.

Application materials are available at http://vertnet.org/about/BITW.php. Submit application materials online (http://vertnet.org/about/BITW.php) or send all completed materials and one letter of recommendation to dbloom@vertnet.org or David Bloom, VertNet Coordinator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UCB, 3101 Valley Life Sciences Building, Berkeley, CA 94720.

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Course Curriculum and Lab Improvement program (award #0633095), the Animal Diversity Web team implemented an advanced search tool we call Quaardvark (in homage to aardvarks, exceptionally good diggers).

The structured data that make up the species accounts are available for research through this tool. Students use Quaardvark to investigate questions based on important principles in ecological and organismal biology. After specifying what animals they are interested in (the query) and what they want to know about those animals (the report), students are presented with data in a spreadsheet-like format. Students explore and analyze the data using familiar tools (such as Excel). This allows students to discover for themselves the patterns underlying important biological concepts through open-ended exploration of real data.

Quaardvark has been tested at five different institutions, and was well-received by students and faculty alike.

ADW Photo contributor, Klaus Jost, publishes a Great White Shark Calendar:

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS92727+14-Oct-2009+PRN20091014

Taxon Tree, the graphic taxonomy visualization tool previously available through the Animal Diversity Web, is no longer available on the site. We continue to look into ways to coordinate ADW database and Taxon Tree development.

The Animal Diversity Web and University of Michigan's School of Education continue their collaboration developing and testing biodiversity curricula in Detroit Public Schools. The "DeepThink" project was funded by the National Science Foundation's Learning Progressions program. This project will develop, implement, and test an innovative set of curricula for 4th, 5th, and 6th grades with structured progression in both content and reasoning complexity.

The Animal Diversity Web received funding from the National Science Foundation's Course Curriculum and Lab Improvement program to develop, implement, and assess the use of our structured query tool for inquiry learning in a variety of undergraduate courses. This structured query tool permits complex queries to extract ADW natural history data, which can then be used to directly test hypotheses in organismal biology. The structured query tool, and exercises designed for it, will be tested in 5 undergraduate institutions in Fall 2007.