[ecoinfo] Fwd: Hackathon announcement to post

[Matt Jones]

This opportunity to participate in a biodiversity hackathon sponsored by
iDigBio and Notes from Nature might be of interest to data managers and
developers in DataONE, LTER, etc.

Matt

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Austin Mast <amast at bio.fsu.edu>
Date: Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 10:22 AM
Subject: Hackathon announcement to post
To: jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
Cc: Rob Guralnick <Robert.Guralnick at colorado.edu>


Hi, Matthew.  Do you mind posting this to an appropriate NCEAS listserv, if
there is one?  Thanks!

iDigBio (www.idigbio.org) and Zooniverse's Notes from Nature Project (
www.notesfromnature.org) are pleased  to announce a hackathon to further
enable public participation in online transcription of biodiversity
specimen labels.  There are approximately 1 billion specimens of this type
in US collections alone, but it is estimated that information from just 10%
of them is currently digitized and online.  Digitization of natural history
collections grants researchers access to vast quantities of information in
their investigations of timely subjects such as climate change, invasive
species, and the extinction crisis.  The magnitude of the task of bringing
those collections into digital format exceeds that of any single
organization and will require new, Internet-scale approaches to engage the
public.  This is an exciting opportunity to work on a ground-breaking
citizen-science endeavor with immediate and strong impacts in the areas of
biodiversity research and applied conservation.

The event will occur from December 16-20, 2013, at iDigBio in Gainesville,
FL.  There is up to $1200 for support of travel and lodging for each
participant.

The hackathon will produce new functionality and interoperability for
Zooniverse's Notes from Nature (www.notesfromnature.org) and similar
transcription tools.  There are four areas of development that will be
progressively addressed throughout the week.  On Monday, the focus will be
(1) linking images registered to the iDigBio Cloud to transcription tools
to create efficiency and alleviate storage issues.  Starting on Tuesday,
topics will include (2) transcription QA/QC and the reconciliation of
replicate transcriptions, (3) integration of OCR into the transcription
workflow, and (4) new UI features and novel incentive approaches for public
engagement.

We expect that most participants will arrive on Monday afternoon and depart
on Friday late afternoon/evening or Saturday morning.  There will be a
social at the Florida Museum of Natural History on Wednesday, December 18.
 There will be opportunities to narrow the focus in each category of
activity in a teleconference tentatively scheduled for early in the week of
November 25.

**If you wish to be considered for one of about ten open invitations (of a
total of about 30), please send (1) your CV/resume, (2) a short description
(<250 words) of your relevant expertise (citing example products where
appropriate), (3) the development areas that interest you (of the four
numbered above), and (4) the days that you can attend to Austin Mast (
amast at bio.fsu.edu) by Friday, November 1, for assured consideration.  At
least 3 slots will be reserved for qualified graduate students.**

With best regards,

Austin and Rob Guralnick (UC-Boulder), co-organizers

Austin Mast
____________________________________

Associate Professor · Director, Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium · Associate
Editor, Systematic Biology and Systematic Botany · Treasurer, American
Society of Plant Taxonomists · Steering Committee Member, iDigBio, The
National Resource for Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections

Department of Biological Science · 319 Stadium Drive · Florida State
University · Tallahassee, FL 32306-4295 · U.S.A.

Office is King Life Science Building, room 4065 · Lab is King Life Science
Building, rooms 4068 and 4084 · Herbarium is Biological Science Unit One,
room 100

Voice: 1 (850) 645-1500 · Fax:  1 (850) 645-8447 · amast at bio.fsu.edu
____________________________________
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