The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), a five-year project funded
under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy,
is looking for contacts in biodiversity for a user needs study. The
study’s aim is to understand how the ALA can simplify,
streamline and support biodiversity work.
Information is wanted from a broad range of people who work with
biodiversity information to find out how biodiversity data is used,
and where it is found. The ALA’s overall mission is to
develop a biodiversity data management system which will link
Australia’s biological knowledge with its scientific and
agricultural reference collections and other custodians of
biological information.
The biodiversity data user study will run until October 2008,
and will initially involve brief email surveys, followed by more
detailed interviews of selected user cases. A workshop is planned
at the Fremantle Biodiversity Information Standards conference in
October to explore two or three user cases in detail. Those
attending will be invited to contribute ideas on what is known, and
the services and user interfaces needed.
Contact John Tann <john.tann@austmus.gov.au> to
send your contacts in the biodiversity world and details of any
scientific meetings or conferences scheduled in Australia between
now and October.
