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<p><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-c21da268-c3dc-bfe6-2026-0ba42e4abedb">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Conference Update: Inaugural Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference, 5-6 June 2017</span></p>
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<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-c21da268-c3dc-bfe6-2026-0ba42e4abedb">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The planning team for the Inaugural Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference is making progress. Sponsored by iDigBio, the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, the University of Michigan Herbarium, and the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology, the conference will be hosted in </span><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Ann Arbor, 5-6 June 2017</span><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">. Abstract submission will open in early January 2017. Featured speakers include:</span></p>
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id="docs-internal-guid-c21da268-c3dc-bfe6-2026-0ba42e4abedb">
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Beth Brainerd, Brown University</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Dori Contreras, Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Mike Donoghue, Yale University</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Dan Fisher, Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Lawrence Hudson, Natural History Museum, London</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Maureen Kearney, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Peter McCartney, U. S. National Science Foundation</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Stephen Smith, University of Michigan</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Pam Soltis, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Adam Summers, University of Washington</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Mike Webster, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Cornell University</span></p>
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</b><br>
<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-c21da268-c3dc-bfe6-2026-0ba42e4abedb">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The rapid mobilization of digitized biodiversity data, led largely in the United States by the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections program, has resulted in a substantial increase in available data for research and related activities. This conference will encompass the uses of digitized data across all biodiversity disciplines, with special emphasis on digitized specimen data and the potential for “big data” analytics in organismal biology. This conference will provide an important opportunity to explore digital data tools, techniques, discoveries, and outcomes across the biodiversity sciences. </span></p>
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<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-c21da268-c3dc-bfe6-2026-0ba42e4abedb">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Oral presentations and posters will emphasize the use of digital data for biodiversity research, inclusive of the neontological and paleontological domains. Emphases might include:</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">published or publishable biodiversity research that depends on digital datasets, </span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">systematics and the use of digital data,</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">ongoing research projects that derive from and use digital datasets,</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">gaps and deficiencies in currently available digital data that hinder effective use, </span></p>
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style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">user critiques of digital data aggregators and providers,</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">integrated digitization/data use/research pipelines,</span></p>
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style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">standards and practices for depositing and documenting open access digital datasets,</span></p>
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style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">
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style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">the role and relevance of “Big Data” in biodiversity research,</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">use of digitized biodiversity data within the ecological sciences,</span></p>
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style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">the relative importance of digital data derived from specimens vs. observations,</span></p>
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style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">managing digital biodiversity data in support of research pipelines, and</span></p>
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style="list-style-type:disc;font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">analyzing and visualizing biodiversity digital data.</span></p>
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</b><br>
<b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-c21da268-c3dc-bfe6-2026-0ba42e4abedb">
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The planning team for the conference includes:</span><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"> Chris Dick, Dan Fisher, Rich Rabeler, Alison Davis Rabosky, Dan Rabosky, Adam Rountrey, Cody Thompson, and Priscilla Tucker from the University of Michigan, and Gil Nelson, Larry Page, Pam Soltis, and Alex Thompson from iDigBio.</span></p>
</b><b style="font-weight:normal;"
id="docs-internal-guid-c21da268-c3dc-bfe6-2026-0ba42e4abedb"><br>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">For further information or to ensure that you are on the email list, please contact Gil Nelson at iDigBio (</span><a
href="mailto:gnelson@bio.fsu.edu"
style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">gnelson@bio.fsu.edu</span></a><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Calibri;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">).</span></p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Gil Nelson, PhD
Assistant Professor/Research
iDigBio Steering Committee
Integrated Digitized Biocollections
Institute for Digital Information and Scientific Communication
College of Communication and Information
Courtesy Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium
Florida State University
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gnelson@bio.fsu.edu">gnelson@bio.fsu.edu</a></pre>
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