Conference on Public Participation in Scientific Research, August 4-5, 2012

What: Conference on Public Participation in Scientific Research (citizen science, volunteer monitoring, community-based research, crowd science)

When: August 4th and 5th, 2012

Where: Portland, Oregon

With the rapid growth and innovation of public participation in scientific research (PPSR), there is a need for sharing insights across projects and fields of study. This landmark event will convene science researchers, project leaders, educators, technology specialists, evaluators, and others from across many disciplines (including astronomy, molecular biology, human and environmental health, and ecology) to discuss advancing the field of PPSR.

The PPSR Conference is being held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), a venue that has long been supportive of citizen science and that welcomes insights from diverse fields. PPSR Conference attendees may be interested in staying in Portland to attend - or even give a talk or poster at - the ESA conference that runs August 6th -10th. ESA's call for abstracts is now open, with a February 23rd deadline (please note that this call is for ESA only, NOT for the PPSR Conference): http://www.esa.org/portland/contributed.php

More details about the PPSR Conference are available at CitizenScience.org/conference/2012, including the agenda, information on a forthcoming call for posters, and a poll for an early headcount.

Conference Co-Organizers:

Meg Domroese, research consultant, SERC Institute
Heidi Ballard, University of California – Davis
Rick Bonney, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Tony DeFalco, Consultant, Equity and Sustainability
Abraham Miller-Rushing, National Park Service
Sarah Newman, National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)
Jennifer Shirk, CitizenScience.org, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Jake Weltzin, U.S. Geological Survey, USA National Phenology Network
Alison Young, California Academy of Sciences

Software Tools for Sensor Networks

We are happy to announce a training workshop “Software Tools for Sensor Networks” sponsored by LTER, NCEAS and DataONE. The training workshop will be held May 1 - May 4, 2012 at the LTER Network Office in Albuquerque, NM. We have support to cover travel and lodging for participants that need it. Registration is now open with a deadline of March 25, 2012. Please see http://sensor-workshop.ecoinformatics.org/ to register. Your participation will be confirmed by April 2, 2012. Participants will be selected to broadly represent the community. A draft agenda and resources are currently listed on the webpage and will be more fully detailed in the coming weeks.

The goal of this training is to promote best practices for sensor data management and provide hands-on training in the use of existing tools and common software. This workshop is designed to introduce several options for managing streaming sensor data and discuss requirements for sensor data management systems and best practices in quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC). Hands-on exercises will focus on open source software stacks such as the Open Source DataTurbine (OSDT), the Kepler Workflow System with R, and CUAHSI's Observation Data Model to capture, quality control, and archive sensor data. Ultimately, we hope that this training will stimulate collaborative efforts where sites can share tool experiences or even code development.

· Workshop dates: May 1 - May 4 (noon), 2012; Travel days: April 30 and May 4 afternoon.

· Registration deadline: March 25, 2012

· Participant confirmation: April 2, 2012

· Location: LTER Network Office, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
We have support to cover travel and lodging for participants that need it.

For more information and to register for the workshop please visit: http://sensor-workshop.ecoinformatics.org/

Please forward this announcement to interested parties, this workshop is not restricted to members of the LTER network

Don Henshaw, Corinna Gries, Matt Jones

LTER