Facilitating Innovation for the Digitization of Collections (FIDoC)

地球上估计有180万种已命名的生物，其中许多正在灭绝或已经灭绝。这种巨大的生物多样性记录在自然历史博物馆、大学和植物园收藏的数百万个研究标本中。这些收藏是尚未开发的知识来源，对环境、公共卫生、粮食安全和商业方面的研究、教育和决策至关重要；但是，大多数收集数据没有得到充分利用，因为它们不能以电子方式访问。该项目将管理一项NSF创新诱导奖，该奖项将吸引广泛的社区开发生物标本自动化数字化的前沿技术。挑战在于将昆虫标本数字化，这是生物标本数字化过程中最艰巨的任务之一。开发完全自动化的方法可能需要设计和部署机器人3D数字成像仪器、图像捕获软件、先进的光学字符识别方法、元数据集成和工作流程优化。除了馆藏数字化之外，为该奖项开发的技术还应在研究、教育和制造业的更广泛应用中具有国家价值。美国生物科学研究所将管理该奖项，并将召集一个由专家志愿者组成的跨学科委员会来制定奖项标准并评判参赛作品。一个享有盛誉的奖项竞争机制有可能创造新的伙伴关系和变革性技术。此外，该奖项还将向公众介绍对美国国家科学基金会和国家重要的科学和工程研究领域。

Of the estimated 1.8 million named species of organisms on Earth, many are becoming or are already extinct. This vast biodiversity is documented in millions of research specimens housed in the collections of natural history museums, universities, and botanical gardens. These collections are an untapped source of knowledge that is critical for research, education, and decision-making about the environment, public health, food security, and commerce; however, most collections data is underutilized because it is not accessible electronically. This project will administer an NSF innovation inducement prize that will engage a broad community to develop pioneering technologies for automated digitization of biological specimens. The challenge is to digitize pinned insect collections, one of the most daunting tasks confronting the digitization of biological collections. Developing fully automated approaches will likely require the design and deployment of robotic 3D digital imaging instruments, image-capture software, advanced optical character recognition methods, metadata integration, and workflow optimization. Beyond collections digitization, the technologies developed for this prize should have national value in their wider application to research, education, and manufacturing. The American Institute of Biological Sciences will administer the prize and will convene an interdisciplinary committee of expert volunteers to develop the prize criteria and judge the entries. A prestigious prize competition mechanism has the potential to create new partnerships and transformative technologies. Additionally, the prize will inform the public about science and engineering research areas that are important to the NSF and the Nation.