2015 Retreat Ideas

• When: Friday, November 20, 2015 - 8:00am to 5:00pm EST
• Where: Learning Center at the Austin Cary Forest (10625 NE Waldo Rd, Gainesville, FL 32609)

Ideas regarding the Retreat format

• Breakout groups
• One large discussion group
• Presentations

Ideas for discussion topics at the Retreat

• Share information from our meeting with NSF, including the new cooperative agreement and panel review summary
• Everyone watch this video together (DP, KL, MC)
  • Data training programmes in large natural history museums to tackle their digital challenges Dimitris Koureas & Clare Valentine, NHM
• How to make our training sustainable
  • Converting our training materials for posterity/sustainability
    • Perhaps partner with Coursera (or a firm like them)
  • Funding for participant support will be declining after 2017
• Tools Knowledge in the Community
  • Developing a strategy for sharing what tools are out there
    • Example: Biovel
• Sharing information about skills researchers need to use particular tools
  • Could get lots of info from iPlant and Data Carpentry about the skills problems people run into when trying to use any of the community tools for research.
    • Use this to strategically point people to where they can transform their data, or learn a skill.
  • NOTE: skills needed are mostly the same across the data providers and researchers based on the experience of COLLAB-IT, Data and Software Carpentry.
• Website update and sustainability
  • Increase role of community in maintaining content -> larger role for Wiki; lesser role for Drupal
  • Content organization/re-organization
  • Facelift?
• Sustainability issues for iDigBio + TCNs
  • Historical Knowledge and Documents
    • Do TCNs have robust plans for sharing developed workflows / protocols / policies (on digitization, imaging, archiving, communication strategies,...)
    • Do they archive plans for these documents?
      • Can we provide this?
    • TCN Staff (at high, middle, and in-the-trenches) are amassing a wealth of knowledge about digitization. When their funding ends, a great deal of this may be lost.
      • How do we include these TCNs in future summits?
      • Is there a role for some Video Exit Interviews (oral interviews), to capture this knowledge? Perhaps Shari and Betty could set something up?
• Topics that come up at the Summit
• Automation
• Mendeley vs. Biblio
  • Improve discoverability
  • Keep iDigBio content and published articles separate
• Get a Library Science grad student to help us with our document repository concerns (I asked Greg R. to look for someone: JM)
• "Common knowledge" about the project
  • Status of the portal and use
  • Scope of data storage (ACIS)
  • Role of postdocs and students in iDigBio — what are they supposed to be doing?
  • Citizen Science
  • K-12 initiatives
• The value of blitzes and hackathons