Room open to test setup, presentations, features.

Logistics.

Welcome.

• Matt Yoder
• Deborah Paul

Thanks for being here. Why is TWT 2025 structured the way it is? Who is this for? What perspectives are we coming from? What kinds of opportunities for discovery are there at TWT 2025?

Stories of Transition in the Realm of Biodiversity Informatics

The Species File Group and the TaxonWorks Community now receives inquiries on a near weekly basis regarding what we can generally categorize as potential transitions. These transitions may be the migration of data from one format to another, the adoption of TaxonWorks for new projects, the transition of data into or out of TaxonWorks, and more generally the seeding of new communities, i.e. the transition from one person to a collective.

Hear from our collaborators stories of the processes behind their transitions, with specific reference to what triggered the need for the transition, and what the expected outcomes are. Communicating the challenges behind the processes behind all this work, and the avenues of exploration around them, helps us all to discover intersections or synergies that can become the focal point of our collective efforts.

• Ana JesovnikTBA (migrating diverse natural history collections into TW)
• Lily HartTBA (students perspective in publishing data)
• Dmitry Mozzerhin, Geoff OwerTBA (sharing nomenclature with the borg)
• Aaron SmithTBA (Purdue Entomological Research Collection's transition to TaxonWorks as a collaboration)
• TBATBA

Break

TaxonWorks: Who and What?

• Matt Yoder
• Debbie Paul

A breakdown of who is (and might be) using TaxonWorks, and for what? Short Q/A to follow.

What's new in TaxonPages?

• José Luis Pereira

TaxonPages is front end for, well, taxon page based websites. Hear what's available, with a time for Q/A to follow.

Break

Informatics opportunities integrating field stations and collections, with special reference to the practical needs and opportunities at the Illinois Natural History Survey

• Auriel Fournier, James Lamer, Arianna Kuhn, Enrique Santoyo Brito, and Jamie Minneart-Grote

In this session, we focus on our local expertise across field stations and research collections as a basis for a conversation on our collective informatics needs. When dealing with interplay between physical and digital data what are your pain points? What tools would you love to have in your hands, are there tools that would catalyze what you can do, or that would let you be more impactful? What is working currently in terms of the digital tools you engage with facilitating your science? We are hoping the conversation will illuminate new intersections as to what we all do (or could do) together. Specifically addressing local needs is a priority here, we deal with diverse but similar issues, communicating those to our broader audience and each other can be eye-opening.

Task-O-Rama I

Part one of a hands on demo/exploration of what's new (or not yet well known) in 2024.

TaxonWorks 101

• Debbie Paul

After a quick introduction on how to get started an open Q/A about the software and its functionality and limitations.

Room open to test setup, presentations, features.

Logistics.

TaxonWorks on the desktop, sandbox and production: Yours, theirs or ours?

• Matt Yoder

How do projects in TaxonWorks originate, what are your options? Non-technical scenarios outlining installing your own instance, testing out features, or starting a project for the long-haul.

Community! Awards!

• Debbie Paul

5 ways to participate in TaxonWorks Community, and our annual awards for those doing so.

What's a Research Software Engineers (RSE) and how does their role intersect long-term open-source based science?

• Daniel S Katz

A moderated discussion. Discover just what an RSE is, and how to connect with their community. We'll touch on topics of software architecture and software (re)use. For example, if we aim to produce software components that could be shared and reused, we need to think about a) what can effectively be shared? b) how do others discover these re-useable pieces exist? c) what architecture (and social structure) best supports the long-term existence/usability of the software? How is the RSE community adapting to and thinking about role of AI in their work?

Break

Building biodiversity informatics tools with the AI-lephant in the room

A moderated discussion regarding AI integration in the field of biodiversity informatics. With a focus on the positive potential share your AHAs and perspectives. Can we create a bullet list of "simple" core-tech services that would facilitate building out the extended-digital-specimen? Highlighting existing efforts is welcome!

Break

Why are the Earth's scientific collections important? Perspectives from a catalyzed series of events emerging during COVID 19

• Pam Soltis, Cody Thompson

A moderated discussion. Collections hold rich data valuable for addressing such (bio)economically critical topics as “what is it?”, “where can I find it?”, “who or what interacts with it?”. From the perspective of a global event such as a pandemic, the specimens and samples stored (aka vouchered) often provide information helping scientists discover, study, track, and understand the provenance of these events through time and space. Through a series of workshops on how (digital) collections and expertise help track disease -- we highlight the need for more use of and greater awareness across domains for these data. Find out what we discovered in this combination round-table + open discussion. We’ll touch on such topics as collections storage and regulations needs, cyber-infrastructure insights, and the need for data sharing.

Task-O-Rama II

Part two of a hands on demo/exploration of what's new (or not yet well known) in 2024

Natural History Collections in TaxonWorks: Entering a Community Consensus Phase

Why TaxonWorks as digitization software? Status and vision. Opportunity for questions focusing on digitization functionality. Announcement of a year-long working group on SpecimenPages, facilitated by the SFG.'

(Pending review) Monoliths, Micro-services, Modules and Managing Expectations

• Donald Hobern, SFG Team

A moderated discussion. TaxonWorks does a lot, some say too much. Others have stated they won't use it until it does more. In this session we reverse the tables and have Donald, and his perspectives coming from his leadership roles at GBIF and beyond, lead an conversation on how to find balance in what we are building, and how community perspectives intersects this process.

Room open to test setup, presentations, features.

Logistics.

geoBoundaries: Challenges to curating (and using) global gazetteers

• Dan Runfola (et al.)

A moderated discussion. The attributes of authoritative geospatial may evolve faster than a taxonomist's favourite species concept. Creating robust ways (e. g. software, user interfaces, and services) for anyone working with geospatial data to be able to define the areas of interest, apply them to research, share that data, and persist their assertions over time is extremely challenging. We look forward to hearing from the geoLab folks at William and Mary and sharing our Species File Group experiences followed by a round-table/open session where you can bring your insights and questions.

Exploring emerging practical informatics needs surrounding the rapidly expanding use of eDNA

• Mark Davis

A moderated discussion. What are the digital threads connecting eDNA to vouchers, inventories, provenance, ephemerality, scaling, identifiers, fieldwork, standards, AI and collections? What are the opportunities for crafting new cloth, and where do we first need to gather more fibers?

Mesquite, TAXONOMATIC, and adapting our biodiversity informatics infrastructure to keep pace with the evolution of what we think a taxon is

• Wayne Maddison

A moderated discussion. What are the challenges of a scientist who develops software for all while using that very software for their systematic research? Insights from the evolution of Mesquite (https://www.mesquiteproject.org/), and the career of a jumping-spider taxonomist. Does the interplay between these two processes (coding, studying evolution) impact how we think about the Things we define and study?

Break

Business, milestones, and future

• Matt Yoder

State of the community. Where to find us in 2025. Calendar-year priorities. Open discussion with feedback and suggestions welcome to follow.

Task-O-Rama Unconference

Part three. Unconference session open until no-one is left standing (sitting, awake?)