| Abstract | During its inaugural year, the Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections Event, WeDigBio
2015, involved thousands of citizen scientists from >50 countries in transcribing biodiversity specimen
labels from a variety of taxonomic groups over four days. Participants at onsite events at museums,
universities, and science classrooms, as well as those distributed individually throughout the world,
used online platforms at DigiVol, Les Herbonautes, Notes from Nature, Smithsonian Institution's
Transcription Center, and Symbiota to transcribe almost 30,000 specimen labels. During the event,
participants learned about collections and biodiversity, interacted with researchers, played games,
shared experiences via social media, and contributed to the growing database of digital biocollections
information. In 2016, WeDigBio is aiming to double the number of onsite events, online participants, and
completed transcriptions, and we encourage biodiversity institutions and citizen scientists within the
Asia-Pacific region to take part in activities. Resources are being developed to help make the event
even more fun, educational, and productive, such as: improvements to the dynamic dashboard at
wedigbio.org (http://wedigbio.org/) and enhanced interoperability with transcription platforms, lesson
plans for teachers, activities for participants at transcription events, and opportunities to interact with
transcribers across events. Certain platforms, such as DigiVol.org, can host images of specimens
from collections in the Asia-Pacific region needing assistance with transcription. WeDigBio 2016 can
be a way to increase the visibility of your biological collection, engage with local citizen scientists, and
expedite digitization, all while being a part of a well publicized global event. Consider being one of the
many online participants helping to mobilize biodiversity collections data, or hosting a WeDigBio event
at your collection, university, or classroom from October 2023, 2016. Learn more at wedigbio.org
(http://wedigbio.org/). |
