General Information

Join Jorrit Poelen and Katja Seltmann for “A Practical Exploration of Biotic Interaction Data Management and Information Retrieval through Terrestrial Parasite Tracker (TPT) and Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI).” This workshop is facilitated by Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio). For more information see iDigBio’s workshop wiki.

During this two-hour long, participatory workshop collection managers, researchers, or data providers will use GloBI for data management and information retrieval. Our group exploration into the data will cover the data origins and data integration process and data products.

This workshop is open to anyone interested in biotic or species interaction data even if you are presently not using GloBI. We will highlight data from the Terrestrial Parasite Tracker project, but the methods are available for anyone interested in biotic interactions (see more at https://www.globalbioticinteractions.org/sources).

The proposed outcome of this workshop is a reusable Carpentries lesson and improved documentation on methods to integrate and access biotic interaction data. We will work together through a series of exploratory data exercises. No programming experience is required, and you will use your own device to download data and create Google Sheets. Everyone will contribute during this workshop. Bring snacks! :)

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to the thousands of (citizen) scientists and their institutions for openly sharing their datasets. Also, thanks for thousands of software engineers for providing high quality open source software on which GloBI is built.

This workshop is supported by the Terrestrial Parasite Tracker project through the National Science Foundation award “Collaborative Research: Digitization TCN: Digitizing collections to trace parasite-host associations and predict the spread of vector-borne disease,” Award numbers DBI:1901932 and DBI:1901926 .

Finally, a big thanks to Erica Krimmel of iDigBio for helping to organize and host this workshop, the Carpentries for providing excellent workshop/lesson templates, and to all the GloBI partners for their support.

Disclaimer

Note that this is not (yet) an official Carpentries workshop, but we are working towards becoming one.

Who: The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: This training will take place online. The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.

When: 28 April 2021. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must have access to a computer with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).

Accessibility: We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.

Contact: Please email [email protected] or [email protected] for more information.

Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.

---

Code of Conduct

Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.

Report a Code of Conduct Incident

---

Schedule

---

Recording

You can find a mp4 recording of the 2021-04-28 event via:

Seltmann & Poelen. 2021. A Practical Exploration of Biotic Interaction Data Management and Information Retrieval through Terrestrial Parasite Tracker (TPT) and Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI) [Workshop]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.4759060

or streaming online on Vimeo at:

A Practical Exploration of Biotic Interaction Data Management and Information Retrieval through TPT and GloBI from iDigBio on Vimeo.

Setup

To participate in a Data Carpentry workshop, you will need access to software as described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

Install the videoconferencing client

If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the official website to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.

Set up your workspace

Like other Carpentries workshops, you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors. To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..) and the window for the Zoom video conference client open. In order to see both at once, we recommend using one of the following set up options:

• Two monitors: If you have two monitors, plan to have the tool you are learing up on one monitor and the video conferencing software on the other.
• Two devices: If you don't have two monitors, do you have another device (tablet, smartphone) with a medium to large sized screen? If so, try using the smaller device as your video conference connection and your larger device (laptop or desktop) to follow along with the tool you will be learning about.
• Divide your screen: If you only have one device and one screen, practice having two windows (the video conference program and one of the tools you will be using at the workshop) open together. How can you best fit both on your screen? Will it work better for you to toggle between them using a keyboard shortcut? Try it out in advance to decide what will work best for you.

This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.

The setup instructions for the Data Carpentry Ecology workshops (with R) can be found at the workshop overview site.