RCN:Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance (NIBA): Organizing, Coordinating, Sustaining

生物收藏品（biocollections），如自然历史博物馆、植物园、大学、野外考察站和美国各地的其他研究中心所保存的生物收藏品，是近250年来对世界各地的活物种和化石物种进行科学调查、发现和清点的结果。数十亿的标本（例如，植物、昆虫和化石）及其相关数据（鸟类叫声的录音、野外记录、地理空间参考发生数据等）被美国1000多个生物标本馆收藏。直到最近，这些资源在很大程度上被降级到橱柜和抽屉里，很少有研究人员，教育工作者或公众意识到它们的存在。数字化采集标本图像及其相关数据的潜力为改变环境、公共卫生、食品安全、商业和国家安全等领域的研究提供了巨大的希望。实现国家生物收藏数字化并使其可供更广泛的社区使用的宏伟目标需要有组织、协调和持续的努力。创建的资源将吸引一个新的用户社区，跨越生物学，地质学，计算机科学和软件工程的传统界限，并将学术研究人员与教育工作者，政策制定者和更广泛的公众联系起来。与海外类似努力的合作将产生真正的全球资源。这个研究协调网络的目的就是建立这样一个社区。NIBA研究协调网络将使新的研究;创建新颖的，跨学科的用户社区;并促进软件和网络基础设施的开发，不仅支持馆藏数字化，而且将具有远远超出该领域范围的更广泛的适用性。最重要的是，它将建立可持续的结构，能够在国家收藏品完全数字化所需的长期内维持这一领域的努力。RCN的指导委员会将帮助规划研讨会并建立工作委员会，以评估和寻求利益相关者对网络综合生物收集联盟（NIBA）实施计划中概述的目标的投入，NIBA是一个拟议的组织和协调持续努力的机制，以数字方式从生物收集中获取标本及其相关数据。RCN将让更广泛的科学界和公众参与一个迭代过程，以评估NIBA实施计划中阐述的六个目标的适当性和可行性，其中包括：1）建立组织和治理结构; 2）推进生物多样性收集网络基础设施的工程; 3）加强对现有收集人员的培训，培养下一代生物多样性信息管理人员; 4）增加广泛的利益相关者的参与; 5）建立持久和可持续的知识基础; 6）将基于知识的学习和探索融入正式和非正式的科学教育。讲习班的成果将包括已发表的报告和计划，这些报告和计划将指导国家努力建设基础设施和实施国家生物多样性评估。通过该RCN建立的新的研究社区和合作将刺激新工具的开发，如软件或新的数据挖掘技术。随着生物标本和数据越来越公开，公民科学家、政府机构人员、K-12教育工作者和许多其他人将开始访问和使用这些信息。所有产品都将存档，并可在www.aibs.org上查阅。

Biological collections (biocollections), such as those maintained by natural history museums, botanic gardens, universities, field stations, and other research centers across the United States are the result of nearly 250 years of scientific investigations, discovery, and inventories of living and fossil species from around the world. Billions of specimens (for example, plants, insects, and fossils) and their associated data (audio recordings of bird calls, field notes, geospatially referenced occurrence data, etc.) are held in more than 1000 biocollections across the United States. Until recently, these resources have largely been relegated to cabinets and drawers with few researchers, educators, or the public aware of their existence. The potential to digitally capture images of specimens and their associated data offers great promise to transform research on the environment, public health, food safety, commerce, and national security. Achieving the ambitious goal of digitizing the nation's biocollections and making them available to the broader community requires an organized, coordinated, and sustained effort. The resources created will engage a new community of users that cuts across traditional boundaries of biology, geology, computer science and software engineering and connects academic researchers with educators, policy makers, and the wider public. Cooperation with similar efforts overseas will result in a truly global resource. The purpose of this Research Coordination Network is to create such a community. The NIBA Research Coordination Network will enable new research; create novel, cross-disciplinary user communities; and promote the development of software and cyberinfrastructure that will not only support collections digitization, but will have more general applicability far beyond the bounds of this field. Most importantly, it will create sustainable structures, capable of maintaining effort in this field over the long period required for full digitization of the nation's collections. The Steering Committee for the RCN will help to plan workshops and establish working committees that will evaluate and seek stakeholder input on the goals outlined in an Implementation Plan for a Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance (NIBA), a proposed mechanism for organizing and coordinating a sustained effort to digitally capture specimens and their associated data from biocollections. The RCN will engage the broader scientific community and public in an iterative process to evaluate the appropriateness and feasibility of the six goals articulated in the Implementation Plan for a NIBA, which include: 1) establishing an organizational and governance structure; 2) advancing engineering of the biodiversity collections cyberinfrastructure; 3) enhancing training of existing collections staff and creating the next generation of biodiversity information managers; 4) increasing participation from a broad range of stakeholders; 5) establish an enduring and sustainable knowledge base; and, 6) infusing specimen-based learning and exploration into formal and informal science education. The products of the workshops will include published reports and plans that will guide a national effort to build the infrastructure and implement NIBA. The new research communities and collaborations that are established through this RCN will stimulate the development of new tools, such as software or new data-mining techniques. As biocollections specimens and data become more publicly available, citizen scientists, government agency personnel, K-12 educators and many others will begin to access and use this information. All products will be archived and made available at www.aibs.org.