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By Ian McDonald – On Wednesday and Thursday last week, colleagues from all around Australia discussed the varying uses of the Atlas of Living Australia and the ways in which its infrastructure, resources and data is being used now and into the future. After multiple presentations, an evening panel discussion and lots of rivetting questions and comments – the symposium was thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended. If […]

By Ian McDonald –

On Wednesday and Thursday last week, colleagues from all around Australia discussed the varying uses of the Atlas of Living Australia and the ways in which its infrastructure, resources and data is being used now and into the future. After multiple presentations, an evening panel discussion and lots of rivetting questions and comments – the symposium was thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended. If you were not able to attend, the abstracts from each of the presentations can be uploaded here and we endeavour to make the presentations available on our website, so keep posted.

The Twitter hashtag for the event was #alass13 and while Twitter is still a relatively new medium for many folk, I thought I’d highlight some of the more useful tweets from our many avid tweeters in the audience. Including our Director’s very first tweet from his personal account – nice work.

‘John La Salle ‏@JohnLaSalle1 12 Jun  – Learning to tweet. Trying again to see if this goes to the right place. #alass13‘

Thanks to all those who tweeted throughout the symposium and kept the virtual world alive with discussion. If you’d like to learn more about using Twitter please feel free to email the Atlas team at info@ala.org.au and they will point you in the right direction for help.

SCROLL TO BOTTOM TO READ IN ORDER.

Ely Wallis ‏@elyw 14 Jun – My talk Data out, data in talk given at #alass13 now on @slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/ewallis/data-out-data-in-the-ala-and-the-field-guide-apps-to-australian-fauna-project … cc @atlaslivingaust

Arthur Chapman ‏@arthur_chapman 13 Jun – Today at #alass13, I found the Citizen Science talks inspiring with lots of new and exciting apps. the future of the ALA looks promising.

Margaret Cawsey ‏@EMCawsey 13 Jun – The #TRIN Wiki is a working example of doing taxonomy in the cloud #alass13

Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Kevin Thiele. Perhaps taxonomy could be done entirely within the #ALAu. #alass13

Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 13 Jun – Kevin Thiele suggesting that the future ALA will include real-time alpha taxonomy. #alass13 #yesplease
Ely Wallis ‏@elyw 13 Jun – Great to hear @froggybeth & @gloryofthe90s saying how valuable @BioDivLibrary is in their collection management work #alass13
dnatheist ‏@dnatheist 13 Jun – @froggybeth inspiring all with digitisation of ANIC collection presentation, including insect soup. #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Alexis Tindall @gloryofthe90s on managing #volunteer #digitization project for biological collections. #digitalimaging #alass13

Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – @gifry The #alau Australian Seedbank Partnership Portal is a model for living collections, currently under consideration #alass13

Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – This exists http://asbp.ala.org.au/  MT @gjfry: Keen to learn more about #ALAu and management of living(?) biological collections #alass13
Margaret Cawsey ‏@EMCawsey 13 Jun – @jim_croft Andrew Treloar says we need collocation of data and tools rather than a distributed system #alass13
TERN ‏@TERN_Aus 13 Jun – ‘Greater than the sum of its parts’ Soils-to-satellites collaboration between @TERN_AEKOS & @atlaslivingaust http://bit.ly/10dMcVY  #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Andrew Treloar @atreloar on the Australian National Data Service http://www.ands.org.au/  Data managed, connected, findable, reusable #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – @snomelf says forget gamification. Volunteers on http://volunteer.ala.org.au  want authentification #crowdsourcing #keepingitreal #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Roger Proctor, describing the Integrated Marine Observing System (#IMOS) http://www.imos.org.au/  10 linked up marine facilities #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Valid observation. MT @dnatheist: Freshwater conspicuous by its absence at #alass13 Maybe in 2014? But it has been a great symposium anyway
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Martin Pullan and Peter Doherty, Soils to Satellites, a collaboration between #ALAu and #TERN http://www.aekos.org.au/NCRIS_partners_tool … #alass13

Margaret Cawsey ‏@EMCawsey 13 Jun – @piers_higgs the BDRS has come in for some high praise from the citizen scientists #alass13

Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – @elyw encouraging people to use OzAtlas, https://m.ala.org.au/  Download it from your Android/iThing store #alass13

Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun –  @elw raises issue of taxonomic name matching. Links to the Australian Fauna directory – incomplete, many names not yet available. #alass13

Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Ely Wallis @elyw describing the iOS/Android Field Guide to Victorian Fauna app. http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/mv-field-guide-app/ … (warning: it’s big) #alass13

Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 13 Jun – Ely Wallis: Coming soon! New Field Guide apps for every Australian State and Territory #inspiringaustralia #alass13 #identifyallthethings
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 13 Jun – Ely Wallis on the success and popularity of the MV Field Guide app – 60,000 downloads! #alass13 #identifyallthethings
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Joe Miller live demoing Acacia phylogenies in PhyloJIVE, mapping character onto the tree. Try it yourself: http://phylojive.ala.org.au/  #alass13
StreamwatchNSW ‏@StreamwatchNSW 13 Jun – I had a great time at the Bermagui Bioblitz, it’s great to see so many people involved and so many records #alass13
Andrew Treloar ‏@atreloar 13 Jun – Coolest thing so far today at #alass13: John Hooper showing a video of a sponge ‘breathing’ at one breath/hour. See http://www.porifera.net/index.php/spongetube …
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – John Hooper describing the Sponge Barcode Project http://www.spongebarcoding.org/  CO1 turned out to be more informative than expected #alass13
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 13 Jun – John Hooper: 23% of all invertebrates sampled from the GBR seabed biodiversity project are sponges #taxonomicimpediment #alass13
Margaret Cawsey ‏@EMCawsey 13 Jun – Libby Hepburn Citizens: Alone we will create a lot of excitement and noise, with scientists we can creat a symphony of science #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Libby Hepburn. The Atlas of Life in the Coastal Wilderness lives here: http://www.alcw.org.au/  Check it out. #citizenscience #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – Including students! MT @froggybeth: Bermagui Bioblitz success stats = 42 surveys, 295 participants, 1,700 records, and 855 species. #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 13 Jun – here it is: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/vast-machine … MT @froggybeth: Recommended reading from Donald Hobern: A Vast Machine by Paul N. Edwards #alass13
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 13 Jun – Donald Hobern achieved a three-tadpole ranking on #iSpot. Out-ranked by a user with a gold-frog ranking. #battleofthenaturalists #alass13
dnatheist ‏@dnatheist 13 Jun – Open science interest in people at #alass13? Aware of http://www.figshare.com  and http://www.peerj.com ? No? Very cool take a look #figshare
Arthur Chapman ‏@arthur_chapman 12 Jun – At #alass13, Talk of the day for me was Dan Rosauer. An interesting and innovative use of the data. Want to see more innovative uses.
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 12 Jun – Craig Moritz on the untapped potential of collections data. Phylogenise it. #alass13
Atlas of Living Aust ‏@atlaslivingaust 12 Jun – Grainne Cleary: it is so important that knowledge collected by scientists is shared with the public #alass13 #openaccess data collection
Atlas of Living Aust ‏@atlaslivingaust 12 Jun – Bioblitz are really great for engaging people with science but lots of resources required & data not always robust #citizenscience #alass13
Atlas of Living Aust ‏@atlaslivingaust 12 Jun – Staff at condamine alliance are creating #youtube training videos for #nrmplus #alass13
Atlas of Living Aust ‏@atlaslivingaust 12 Jun – Issues with developing Apps: Apple, Android, Windows all have different systems and require different versions #alass13
Atlas of Living Aust ‏@atlaslivingaust 12 Jun – @leebel: You can view the details of any record and flag any errors you think it may contain #alass13
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 12 Jun – Ben Raymond has animated migration of Aust Pratincole using #ALAu data points – awesome use of data!! #alass13

Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 12 Jun – Trevor Booth: the ALA is quick, cheap, simple and available now #whatareyouwaitingfor #alass13

Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 12 Jun – Trevor Booth: of 819 eucalypt spp, 41% have <2 deg C climate envelope, 25%<1 deg C . Shoutout to @emcawsey #climatechange #beafraid #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 12 Jun – Kristen Williams – 89% of contrib in predictive models come from climatic variables! Remember this when discussing #climatechange #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 12 Jun – Simon Ferrier deep into colouring maps of Australia by numbers. #geoimpressionism #biopointillism #alass13
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 12 Jun – Data gaps = there are no redback spiders in the ACT except at John La Salle’s house #alass13
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 12 Jun – 500 million ALA records downloaded and used to date #alass13 #alau
Gary Fry ‏@gjfry 12 Jun – Citizen science – we can all contribute through Atlas of Living Australia #alass13 http://www.alass2013.com 
alexis ‏@gloryofthe90s 12 Jun – Wow, really compelling talk from Steven Chown on potential of data to quickly affect policy & practice in Antarctic protection #alass13
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 12 Jun – Steven Chown, 40k visitors per yr to Antarctica! Spatial analyses of introduced spp, monitoring biodiversity changes #evilPoaannua #alass13
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 12 Jun – ALA Portal of increasing importance for triage decision-making for Antarctic under increasing pressure #alass13 #alau
Beth Mantle ‏@froggybeth 12 Jun – Steven Chown: Vacuum-cleaning Antarctic visitors to monitor invasive plant species #alass13 #alau
dnatheist ‏@dnatheist 12 Jun – #alass13 15 bio geographic regions in Antarctic – who knew?
dnatheist ‏@dnatheist 12 Jun – #alass13 spatially explicit physiological data from Steven Chown. Very cool even before use for environmental protection.
Jim Croft ‏@jim_croft 12 Jun – The ALA Science Symposium #alass13 programme is here: http://www.alass2013.com/ 

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