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Abstract Detail



Systematics Section/ASPT

Mast, Austin R. [1], Kimberly, Paul [2], Flemons, Paul [3], Ellwood, Elizabeth [1], Love, Kevin [4], Paul, Deborah [5], Guralnick, Robert [4].

The Worldwide Engagement for Digitization of Biocollections (WeDigBio) Event.

A group representing online transcription platforms, biocollections, museum informal education and media departments, National Geographic, and iDigBio is planning an annual 4-day event focused on global public participation in digitization of biocollections. The event has the dual goals of increasing the rate of specimen digitization—typically thought of as digital imaging, label transcription, and georeferencing—and public understanding of biocollections and their role in research, natural resource management, education, policy decisions, etc. The latter, when done well, has the potential to expand both science literacy and community support for biocollections. The event will initially focus on transcription because existing online platforms enable internet-scale participation during the event, something not possible with digital imaging or yet widely available for georeferencing. The event is currently called WeDigBio for Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections, and it is planned for October 22–25 in 2015. The group has planned ways to engage both distributed online participants, a group unencumbered by space and work-week limitations, and participants who gather onsite at their local biocollection for a transcription blitz during the event. WeDigBio organizers are assembling a "blitz kit" for biocollections hosting onsite events. The kit's resources include checklists, recommendations, artwork, a media release example, and transcription games, such as Habitat Bingo and Timeline Traveler. If you represent a biocollection or a group of biocollections (e.g., an herbarium or a thematic collections network) that is already hosting specimen images for transcription at a transcription platform, we would be pleased to discuss incorporating you into the 2015 WeDigBio event. Transcription platforms participating in the planning include the Smithsonian Transcription Center, Atlas of Living Australia's Digivol, Zooniverse's Notes from Nature, Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland's Herbaria@Home, Symbiota, and the French National Museum of Natural History's Les Herbonautes. The website WeDigBio.org is planned to provide a visualization of digitization activity during the event, enable public participants to find a transcription project that matches their interests, provide museums and other biocollections resources to host an onsite transcription blitz using the online platforms, and aggregate stories and other resources for the media covering the event. The talk will provide an overview of WeDigBio and ways that biocollections can participate in the 2015 and future events.


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Related Links:
WeDigBio
iDigBio
Smithsonian Transcription Center
Symbiota


1 - Florida State University, Department Of Biological Science, 319 Stadium Drive, Tallahassee, FL, 32306, USA
2 - Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, 10th and Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., 20560-0106, USA
3 - Australian Museum, Research Institute, 6 College Street , Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia
4 - University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, FL, 32603, USA
5 - Florida State University, Institute for Digital Information and Scientific Communication, Louis Shores Building, Tallahassee, FL, 32306, USA

Keywords:
citizen science
Public Participation in Scientific Research
Biocollections
Herbaria
iDigBio
WeDigBio
Digitization
herbarium specimen.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 18
Location: Salon 3/The Shaw Conference Centre
Date: Monday, July 27th, 2015
Time: 4:15 PM
Number: 18011
Abstract ID:674
Candidate for Awards:None


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