A workshop to be held May 30, 2008 at University of Maryland in association with the Human-Computer Interaction Lab’s annual symposium and open house [1]

Agenda [1]

NEW! Brainstorming notes [1]

There have been many recent efforts to engage both scientific and citizen communities towards sharing knowledge about biological diversity. The recently launched Encyclopedia of Life [2] is a particularly high-profile example of a web-based project where success (in this case, "creating a website for every species known to science") requires large numbers of individuals to contribute their expertise. Other examples are large collaborative projects to determine the shape of the tree of life (AToL [3]).

How do we engage a scientific community in online collaboration? Do we need:

• Financial incentives (if so, how)?
• Non-financial reputation or reward systems?
• More effective technology?
• Training?
• Better analysis of audience needs?
• Assurances of quality?
• Someone else (e.g. not primary researchers) to do the work of getting knowledge online?
• A few large, high-quality options for participation or many small, targeted, more personally rewarding sites?

Some might suggest that the very nature of scientific practices or personalities in taxonomy or field biology precludes online collaboration. Can we learn from successful citizen science initiatives? The social factors involved in such large-scale collaborative efforts need examination.

This all-day workshop brings together researchers in fields of online communities, social networks, and computer-supported collaborative work with biologists and biodiversity informaticists to investigate special problems and their possible solutions.

The social challenges facing the biodiversity research community are arguably its most difficult. Consider joining us for lively discussion and plans for how to move forward.

Organized by:
Cynthia Sims Parr [4] (Leptree.net [5])
Jennifer Golbeck [6] (iSchool [7])
University of Maryland

Confirmed participants:
Jim Edwards (Executive Director, Encyclopedia of Life [8])
Jenny Preece (Dean, College of Information Studies [9], University of Maryland)
Mark Miller (San Diego Supercomputer Center)
Marie Studer (Director of Outreach and Education, Encyclopedia of Life [10])
Tom Orrell (Acting Director ITIS [11]/Informatics Branch Chief, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History [12])
Tricia Jones (Animal Diversity Web [13])
Bruce Kiesel (Director of Knowledge Management, Thomson Scientific [14])
Bryan Heidorn (Program Director, Division of Biological Infrastructure, NSF [15])
Greg Riccardi (MorphBank [16])
Christina Pikas (College of Information Studies [17], University of Maryland)
Jonathan Adams (ConserveOnline [18], The Nature Conservancy)
Alice Preston (Aluka [19] digital library)
Nathan Bos (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory [20])
Ruth Timme (University of Maryland)
Nina Chkenkeli (National Biological Information Infrastructure [21])
and Susan Chun, (Steve.Museum [22]), via podcast

9:30am - 4:30pm

To apply:
Send a brief description of your background and reasons for interest in the workshop to Cyndy Parr [23]. Registration will be capped at 20 participants. Fee for attending is $60 and it is not necessary to register for the associated May 29 symposium [24] although we encourage you to consider it.

Co-sponsored by the NSF-funded Spire [25] and LepTree.net [26] projects.