Corresponding author: Gil Nelson (
Academic editor:
Over the last decade, the Integrated Digitized Biocollections (
We use the case of paleontological data as an exemplar of the potential impact of this collaboration. The iDigBio Paleontology Digitization Working Group, which was originally created by iDigBio as part of their community engagement program, has continued to be an active and engaged community of data providers and end-users, organizing numerous workshops and webinars. Currently, working group members, in collaboration with iDigBio staff and developers, are examining issues specific to paleontologic data aggregation that were identified by data providers; they are also working on a series of best-practices guidelines for sharing paleontologic data that will ideally help to reduce the number of mistakes made by downstream data aggregation manipulations. The focus of the working group is, and has been, largely community driven and supported by iDigBio through the provision of virtual meeting space for participants and by hosting the group's wiki-page of resources. Additionally, iDigBio has been proactive in working with other digitization initiatives in the paleontologic community (e.g.,
Gil Nelson
Biodiversity_Next 2019
iDigBio is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation's Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Program [DBI-1115210 (2011-2018) and DBI-1547229 (2016-2021)]. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
iDigBio is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation's Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Program [DBI-1115210 (2011-2018) and DBI-1547229 (2016-2021)]. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
iDigBio Phase 2