%META:TOPICINFO{author="RogerHyam" date="1141639153" format="1.1" version="1.2"}% %META:TOPICPARENT{name="TipSurveyResults"}% ---+ What (if any) COMMUNITY should TDWG target to recruit new members to make it a more effective organisation? (back to TipSurveyResults) _A hard one! The specialist nature of the mission is such that hybrids that can speak both biodiversity and computers are the most comfortable in TDWG surroundings. It would be good to attract some USERS who could say with certainty what sort of systems TDWG/GBIF should be building._ _All those whose participation is needed to make GBIF's goals of global data sharing a reality. This includes taxonomists, compilers of taxonomic names, specimen data software developers, designers of internet data portals and provider protocols._ _ANY taxonomist. Broader community = greater chance of standards set being actually followed_ _Anyone that is working in developing systematic, taxonomic or distribution information systems. They are working with description problems, nomenclatural problems, systematic and taxonomic problems, bibliographic problems, distribution problems, molecular problems, etc. It could be a good help for them, and their ideas could be very helpful for all the community._ _Anyone who creates or uses information about biodiversity._ _Areas outside of botany; GBIF and other biodiversity organisations; memberships from beyond the Western developed and developing world; information and collection managers _ _arthropod taxonomy, community ecology, systematics collections, landgrant collections, biodiversity inventory_ _As described above (question #9), members from the ecological, observational, conservation, natural resource management, and spatial data management communities. _ _biodiversity and taxonomy community_ _Biological collections community_ _Biological recording community and biological record centres_ _Computer science (mentioned in previous Q)_ _Difficult - I think the first is a broader user community (both thematic and level - i.e. managers) to 1. identify new needs 2. to make TDWG more robust 3. to provide a broader test base for its standards The second is at an organisational level - the most difficult, but getting senior policy people involved. Some of this can only be done via the first group - the users of the standards. A third is standards developers - but these will tend to appear - or need to be found as needs are identified. A fourth is integrating with other areas, including other standards organisations. TDWG will never be as well known as ISO or WC3 etc as its user base is much smaller and it shouldn't attempt to be such an organisation. It should find its niche and be the best, be essential, etc. within that niche. It should then make clear to the community (and other Standards Organisations) where it sees its niche as being so that there is no fear of overlap etc. - or at least where this overlap, then these other organisations and TDWG interface . _ _Ecological, agricultural, environmental_ _Entomological / Plant Pathology Societies_ _Entomology / Plant Pathology societies_ _Every university, not just big institutions, since we've shown that partnerships can get things done. The NOPD is funded through grants that I write to government agencies._ _Geographic_ _Geographic_ _Government agencies_ _In country specialists. The UK has a large number of Local Records Centers and recording schemes run by people like the Botanical Society of the British Isles. I am sure similar things occur in Europe and North America yet they are invisible at TDWG who seem only to deal with larger institutions._ _In terms of standards developments, TDWG addresses the appropriate community already. It would be helpful to recruit some web developer volunteers to keep a decent set of online collaboration tools working and in constant improvement. _ _In the US State and Federal Government officials who run museums and natural history surveys. They hold large quantities of information of the type relevant to TDWG. Parallels exist througout the world. There is already good penetration in major museums. Perhaps database vendors such as EMu._ _it needs to be a synthesis of taxonomic researchers with computer technology scientists_ _It should integrate itself directly and formally with societies and organisations like GBIF_ _Look at organizations that already have great experience in the process of standardization, e.g. the environment of marine shipping._ _molecular biology & classic bioinformatics_ _More inputs from organism specialists._ _Museum curators and professional societies, e.g., Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Botanical Society of America, International Association of Plant Taxonomists._ _My community of the germplasm genebanks (seed banks) for conservation of genetic diversity for the food crops is poorly represented in TDWG and GBIF, yet resourceful and publicly funded with open data access to the databases. In Europe The Nordic Gene Bank (NGB), BLE-IBV and Gatersleben (Germany), CGN (Netherlands). In the US the USDA-GRIN. Worldwide the CGIAR institutes, in particular IPGRI (Rome, Italy), IRRI (Manilla, Philippines), CIP (Lima, Peru), CIMMYT (Mexico City, Mexico) and ICARDA (Aleppo, Syria)._ _Natural History museum community, the holders of most of the archived information._ _Need a balance of taxonomists and database specialists, as well as managers of large databases and database users (government, conservation agencies, libraries)_ _Needs to involve working taxonomists (biodiversity)_ _Owners of databases containing biological data._ _Paleontology_ _Perhaps a more diverse suite of institutions, including those that are on the front lines of integrating biological databases._ _Perhaps more public presence among taxonomists and other biologists in general, but I'm not really sure how many more people are 'out there' at the intersection of biology and informatics. Perhaps more emphasis in fields outside of taxonomy, which represent a broader user base (if not content provider base)._ _Perhaps TDWG should not target specific communities but focus on making it as easy as possible for any interested communities (including 'local' communities) to find and use TDWG._ _Phylogenetics people, perhaps also genetic / molecular databases, gene ontology people, etc._ _Phyloinformatics, the Tree of Life community._ _Plant Genetic Resources Community (which has a strong and long-term tradition in developing their own standards) _ _Representatives from other latitudes of the world should be seeked and invited, this would give TDWG a more sound authority in defining worldwide standards that are used all over. I do feel the Taxonomic community should mantain an open door to Biodiversity in general and TDWG should keep promoting other communities like ecology and genetics to participate in TDWG's process._ _scientific/botanical/zoological (especially with regards to BRU standard)_ _See number 6._ _semantic web community, Internet standards groups_ _Specialty organizations that are taxon based, like Entomological Society of America, American Society of Mammalogists, etc._ _systematists_ _taxon-based communities, especially museums and other data aggregators._ _taxonomic / systematic professional societies_ _Taxonomists and researchers from countries other than Western Europe and North America_ _taxonomists who are currently involved in development of databases for their taxonomic groups of interest_ _Taxonomists working on database/bio-informatic projects_ _The private sector._ _The young developing taxonomists at the Universities._ _There is a very active medical informatics community already involved in standards development through ASTM, with much interaction with NIST (US National Institute of Standards and Technology)._ _Those involved with other practical and key information standards/metadata/federation/discovery activities - particularly those in the GIS and Digital Library comunity._ _THose working in smaller (less well resourced) particularly from institutes in developing nations. More engagement with the USERS of biological information services rather than the providers_ _to be more effective, it needs to recruit more energetic advocates for its core purpose, agenda, outputs and outcomes. It needs to align itself with a formal society (society of systematic biologists??) to lend more of a profile and mandate. Members should publish opinion pieces about issues to do with standards development. For example, what is TDWG's response to Godfray's call for unitary taxonomy? How do the roles of GBIF and TDWG complement each other? _ _To ensure all major taxonomic resource providers sign up to TDWG Funding bodies to be aware of work and get them to support TDWG's activities General computing community - to get understanding of some of complexities. _ _University biodiversity informaticists_ _University Science Information departments BioNet ring members Conservation/sustainability/ecology groups_ _User groups (science ministries, policy groups, etc.) who have real use for biodiversity data but need to be able to articulate those uses and thereby provide better guidance on what TDWG needs to develop._ _Why should it recruit new members? _ _Work more closely with the Entomological Collections Network. I don't know what the demographics of TDWG are currently, but each code and major group should be well represented. When I joined, TDWG was dominated by botanists, which made it more daunting for others to join, despite TDWG's efforts to recruit--justifying with higher ups attendance at meetings and membership dues for the institution was a harder sell. Getting more institutional support is likely important as well, from all museums and groups with large systematics components._ _Working groups from other communities with regards to data organization and categorization._ _Zoologists / entomologists_