[seek-taxon] FW: Observation WG - materials for your review (due Oct 26, 2005)

[Robert K. Peet]

Hi Lynn,

Thanks for sharing your rough drafts.  Attached find my very preliminary 
comments and suggestions.  More to follow later.

Best,
Bob

  ======================================================================
      Robert K. Peet, Professor & Chair         Phone:  919-962-6942
      Curriculum in Ecology, CB#3275            Fax:    919-962-6930
      University of North Carolina              Cell:   919-368-4971
      Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3275  USA          Email:  peet at unc.edu

                    http://www.unc.edu/depts/ecology/
                  http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/peet/
  ======================================================================


On Fri, 28 Oct 2005, Lynn Kutner wrote:

> Hi Bob -
>
> Here are the very drafty materials I described - please let me know if
> you have any questions.
>
> Lynn
>
> Lynn Kutner
> NatureServe
> Email:    lynn_kutner at natureserve.org
> Phone:   (303) 541-0360
> www.natureserve.org
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Lynn Kutner
> Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 2:25 PM
> To: Karen Cieminski; 'acox at mt.gov'; 'kwalker at mt.gov';
> 'john.fleckenstein at wadnr.gov'; Peter_Sorrill; 'Pete Sorrill (E-mail)';
> Ewen Eberhardt; Larry Master; Jennifer Nichols; Donna Reynolds; Bruce
> Stein; Rickie White; 'Tim Levatich (E-mail)'; 'Cecilia Lougheed
> (E-mail)'; 'adh at ice.ucdavis.edu'
> Cc: Rob Solomon; Keith Carr; Don Faber-Langendoen; Douglas Sellers; Judy
> Soule; Kristin Barker
> Subject: Observation WG - materials for your review (due Oct 26, 2005)
>
>
> Hi observation working group -
>
>
>
> Sorry for not sending out any communications recently. It's been a very
> busy summer and the good news is that there is growing interest in the
> development of observation data standards both across the NatureServe
> network and internationally. Even though you haven't heard from me
> recently - I've been busy in the background integrating your comments
> and taking the draft to the next stage. I was also able to make
> presentations about this effort at several international conferences.
>
>
>
> A brief summary of observation standard development:
>
>
>
> 1)      Integrated all your comments from the June 27-28 meeting into a
> single master document.
>
> 2)      Used your "High, Medium, Low, or Drop" prioritization and
> comments to get an initial sense of what people saw as core information
> to be included across data types.
>
> 3)      Worked extensively with Jennifer Nichols, Donna Reynolds, and
> Larry Master to develop a draft for the core attributes including
> preliminary discussions about possible data types (see:
> obs_core_20051005.xls), and began to play around with ideas for possible
> database structure (see:  Obs_Data_Model_ver2.doc).
>
> 4)      Used comments from the team to develop a first draft of
> requirements for the observation data standard & database (see:
> obs_requirements_ver2.1.doc)
>
>
>
> Meetings - presentations and discussion about the development of an
> observation data standard:
>
> *        ESRI International User Conference
>
> *        Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS) annual meeting
>
> *        Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) annual meeting
>
> *        East region heritage conference (people seemed to like much of
> the core data ideas presented and the discussion ended up mostly focused
> on software needs)
>
>
>
> HOMEWORK:
>
>
>
> Please review the attached documents and get comments back to me by
> Wednesday October 26th.
>
>
>
> The highest priority for comments:
>
> *	Are the observation data standard requirements statements
> correct? Anything critical missing? (see the 1st section of
> "obs_requirements_ver2.1.doc")
> *	Does the "core" dataset seem to be headed in the correct
> direction? Anything critical missing? Anything that should be dropped
> from the "core" set? (see items marked "core" in the spreadsheet
> "obs_core_20051005.xls")
>
> If you have finished the above and have time - thoughts on possible data
> types and database structure would be helpful. Several of us began to
> play around with ideas, but this is not at all well developed.
>
>
>
> Want an observation working group conference call? It's been awhile
> since we've met - please let me know if you'd like me to set up a
> conference call for the group.
>
>
>
> NEXT STEPS:
>
>
>
> As those of you who are on the NatureServe datamanager / Biotics email
> lists may have noticed - there's a huge interest right now in
> observation data. I'd like to have some draft materials ready by the end
> of October to send out for broader review and comment while this topic
> is on people's minds. The first priority is to turn the core information
> types into a data dictionary / schema. Then we can wrestle with database
> design.
>
>
>
> A team at NatureServe has begun to think about a software prototype for
> an observation data module. I've been in close communication with this
> group, and continue to provide them with drafts from our efforts.
>
>
> Thanks!
> Lynn
>
> P.S. I'll also post these materials in our my.nbii.gov work area
>
>
>
> Lynn Kutner
> NatureServe
> Email:    lynn_kutner at natureserve.org
> Phone:   (303) 541-0360
> www.natureserve.org
>
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