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For a full description of reasoning for and background of Building SpeciesBanks: How Shall We Shape the Future?, please click here.

Registrants who have been selected to attend will represent three groups of people:

• Online Users - What do people who search for species information on the Web want as a result of their queries? How do they want that information presented? How do they want to be able to ask their questions?


• Information Providers - What amount of information must be available before it can be said to constitute a SpeciesBank? That is, must each species of nematode have had as much research done on its taxonomy, physiology, chemistry and behavior (and all of that research data be available on the Internet) as have the species of primates? Or, can an information-retrieval portal be built such that all the available data, whether a great deal or only a name, can be retrieved for any species the user wishes to ask about?


• Informatics Technologists - What standards for data and metadata are going to be needed to be able to search for data about species among databases of taxonomy, physiology, ecology, molecular genetics, etc. etc. etc.? What software and protocols already exist that can be adapted to this purpose? What is the role of web services technologies? How can different interfaces for various user groups access the common pool of data?