September 2009 – Atlas activities, articles and reports, media releases, conferences and workshops, biodiversity weblinks
From the Director
- Donald Hobern talks about Super Science and Future Directions (article no longer available)
Partners/Stakeholder update
- Helen Thompson reports from the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS) on Names data for the Atlas of Living Australia. (article no longer available)
The Atlas of Living Australia User Needs Analysis identified the need for people working with biodiversity data to refer to organisms by their names. The report recommended the use of a well-managed name service. In response to this recommendation, a project to develop a unified web service interface to names information was begun.
A similar article about Names Services »
Super Science activities
- John Tann at the Australian Museum reports on Collection Data Management.
The four councils representing Australia’s biological collections are working together to plan an appropriate infrastructure for the ALA that will provide better ways to manage data collected in a variety of ways.
- Lee Belbin, an ALA contractor from Blatant Fabrications, introduces the ALA’s Geospatial data management project.
Lee looks at issues around dealing with geospatial data in the ALA.
Technical updates
- John Tann at the Australian Museum brings us up to date on Sensitive data and the Atlas of Living Australia.
It has been said that one of the toughest barriers to sharing data is determining which records contain sensitive data, the data that might cause harm if made public. The suggestion is that the ALA builds a Sensitive Data Service.
People profiles
- This month we feature Donald Hobern.
In future issues, we will be introducing ALA people from around Australia.