MSC03 2020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
Physical Location:
CERIA Building
Room 204
Phone: (505) 277-1358
Fax: (505) 277-1351
cookjose@unm.edu
AIM-UP! RCN All-Hands Meeting
Summary of Presentations and Discussions
Hotel Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico
15 & 16 October 2010
Joe Cook – PI , Curator of Mammals, Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico
Eileen Lacey – PI , Curator of Mammals, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley
Scott Edwards – PI , Curator of Ornithology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
Steffi Ickert-Bond – PI, Curator of the Herbarium, University of Alaska Museum of the North
Carla Cicero, Staff Curator of Birds, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley
John Demboski, Curator of Vertebrates, Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Scott Gardner, Curator of Parasitology, Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Bob Hanner, Associate Director, Canadian Barcode of Life Network, University of Guelph
Bryan Heidorn, Director of School of Information Resources and Library Science, University of Arizona
Eric Hoberg, Curator, U.S. National Parasite Collection
Tricia Jones, Senior Research Associate, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan
Jeremy Kirchman, Curator of Ornithology, New York State Museum
Dusty McDonald, Arctos Programmer, University of Alaska Museum of the North
Phil Myers, Curator, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan
Tom Turner, Director of MSB, Curator of Fishes, Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico
Tomislav Urban, Senior Software Developer, Data Management & Collections, Texas Advanced Computing Center, University of Texas, Austin
John Wieczorek, Programmer/Analyst, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley
Chris Witt, Curator of Birds, Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico
Gordon Jarrell, Research Associate, Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico
Kayce Bell, Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico
Blake Eggemeyer, University of Alaska
AIM-UP! is a NSF sponsored Research Coordinating Network (RCN) focused on developing innovative approaches to using museum collections and associated data in undergraduate education.
Overview of structure, timeline, and plans. Accomplishments since June beginning.
The RCN has on 5 annual themes (which are somewhat flexible):
Themes overlap. Should we consolidate or include new themes?
Due to online access, museum collections and associated data are now readily available for instructional activities based on active learning.
Our plan is to begin to develop lessons and demonstrations that will work for a variety of courses (large/small, lecture/lab/field) and undergraduate research experiences in biology.
Educational goals include increasing (a) value of collections, (b) awareness of organismal diversity, (c) interest in evolutionary biology, and (d) ability to use analytical tools
Traditional uses for collections in education include “ology” courses, curatorial training, research assistantships, museum apprentice programs
Audiences for educational activities include schools with collections, schools without collections
We need to design activities for both targets, with emphasis on programs without collections
There needs to be a fundamental shift in the way museum collections and data are perceived by educators and students.
Keep the focus of RCN on undergraduate courses.
History of the Arctos database.
There are many biodiversity information sources available on the internet.
VertNET is a proposed database that will make it easy to upload and access data.
VertNET would take the server burden off of institutions and allow for smaller collections of data to be uploaded and accessed.
Map of Life: a proposed platform for production of expert species range maps.
Participants felt they had a reasonable understanding of the RCN and the current year’s theme (Integrated Inventories) 3.75 & 3.5, respectively (on a scale of 1-5).
Participants want the following from this meeting:
Expectations: Define deliverables and path to their development. Identify the role of non-PI institutions and RCN expectations of them and funding for them to develop activities. Find ways to reach out to the broader communities.
Response from Cook: There is funding available for non-PI institutions to be involved through requests to Steering Committee (Ickert-Bond, Edwards, Lacey, Cook) for expenses related to travel, web development, and outreach. Need to figure out how that will be distributed/requested.
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
Animal Diversity Web (ADW) uses natural history-based active learning.
ADW is written by and for college students, but open to a wider audience.
College students formulate species accounts from a template.
Accounts are structured on varying taxonomic levels with side articles.
Quaardvark is the querying tool for ADW.
ADW is primarily a teaching tool, currently restricted to described species, could possibly be adapted for use as a teaching tool to describe new species.
The University of Alaska Museum of the North (ALA) Herbarium houses mainly vascular plants from Alaska as well as Canada and Russia.
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) stores images of herbarium specimens, most of which has been digitized and is available on Arctos.
Using ALA Herbarium collections to look at sheets and update Arctos based on information on specimen labels may be a good undergraduate activity.
The Systematic Botany course uses both images and specimens to create keys.
ALA Herbarium specimens could be used for structured activities for teachers.
Sometimes time-intensive activities (such as digitizing the collection) are not recognized as traditional academic activities.
Non-museum institutions:
Museum Institutions:
Public Outreach:
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) has massive data storage, Data Management and Collections (DMC) group wanted to bring data to a competitive level of expertise.
TACC has 2 particular sub-projects with education and outreach components:
DNA Subway is similar to tools for scientists, but packaged for high school students.
The explanation provided at the beginning of an activity is important to understand what is going
This is similar to what we want to think about for museum tools.
Missions of the Manter Lab (University of Nebraska, Lincoln) are to train student scientists, conduct research, and use collections for education.
One of the objectives of the lab is to document and describe the biodiversity of the planet before it is gone.
It is important to get host and associated data, but there is a lot of additional data added by including parasites.
The Manter Lab has an online database in the process of being transferred to Arctos.
The lab also has virtual microscopy that can be used remotely. Images taken by remote users are uploaded into the Manter Lab image library.
A barcode is a DNA-based identification system.
Barcode requires a gene that is relatively invariant within species but variable between species.
The Barcode Library is themed on eukaryotes, with a focus on bio-surveillance targets.
There are several on-going collecting projects for barcoding.
Barcode of Life Database has multiple aspects; management and analysis, identification engine, and external connectivity.
The educational considerations are biodiversity informatics tools, specimen record digitization, specimen associations, taxonomic calibration, and translational taxonomy.
eBOL is bioscience education through DNA barcoding. There is excellent potential for student collecting of specimens, followed by sending specimens to be barcoded.
There is also opportunity for RCN to link and help develop eBOL.
Need pre- and post-course evaluations for the seminar course.
SALG allows for students to assess their own gains, can also ask content questions. www.salgsite.org.
Track use of materials, including use on the webpage. There are different tools to track each of these things.
Need clarification for goals in terms to student gains. Skills? Quality of Questions they ask? Get them to understand this is a legitimate form of research? Number of faculty that adopt the approach and/or the number of students reached? What are the component skills of how students are asking these questions?
There are two main areas to evaluate, how well the network functions and the undergraduate education component.
One objective is to engage students more actively in a lesson or in a lab. Can we measure levels of enthusiasm for the subject?
How can students indicate if they felt their success was due to new curricula? In the past, just ask them at the end. Another way is to ask students at 3 points along the semester about their knowledge of how they do a task, their belief that they would be successful at that task, and their previous knowledge of how to do that task. You can then map a trajectory of learning.
With the interface, you need to know if it is hard to do the task because of the difficulty of using the technology or the complexity of the research. Ask these kinds of questions correctly and you can tell if students are happy with content vs. the computer.
We have to be careful to evaluate other goals, reaching out to certain communities, etc.
We can get out lessons that can be beta-tested before the year four plan with 8 students.
Year 1 Seminar – integrating the types of collecting events, integrate information from one specimen, also integrating multiple collections into education
Could use museum-based specimens to design and teach an entire curriculum.
Museum collections are particularly useful for conveying issues related to temporal and spatial scale, using baselines from specimens.
Many fundamental concepts and tests of ecology and evolution are derived from museum data.
The specimen is a portal to a large array of information.
The strength of specimens is in the comparison of individuals. Comparative biology is the area where specimen-based educational modules can make some great contributions
Non-Museum Institutions:
Public Outreach Group:
Integrative Data Sets and Museum Collections:
Future directions – make the fall seminar for undergraduate students (too?).
Have the fall semester hosted somewhere besides UNM, have another institution host it.
Next year, switch to undergraduate course out of UNM, webinar to Berkeley, UAF, and others.
Evaluation of specific deliverables will develop as deliverables identified.
Next meeting will be spring 2012 in Fairbanks.
Think about new people/institutions to bring into the network.
Improve public interfaces.
Give talks at research meetings you are attending.
Continue to develop fall seminar. Encourage graduate students to think about novel ways to use museum data in undergraduate education (as part of their graduate program).
Develop undergraduate seminar – give them exercise and help them work through them. See what the educational products are from Fall 2010 seminar.
Design a museum-based project as part of another course.
1. Better web presence (Gordon, Steffi, Blake, Tomislav):
2. Talks at relevant professional society meetings
3. Modification of fall seminar (Joe, Eileen)
4. Begin developing one-off modules for undergrad courses (Eileen, ??)
5. Develop specific evaluation activities (Phil, Tricia)
09:00-09:30 Welcome and introduction (Joe)
09:30-10:30 Outline RCN (Joe)
Goals
Activities
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
11:00-11:30 Museum based undergraduate education (Eileen)
11:30-12:00 Museum databases: new approaches (Gordon, John)
12:00-13:30 Lunch
13:30-15:00 Creative new tools and approaches
Herbarium imaging (Steffi)
Web-based curricula (Jeremy)
Animal Diversity Web (Phil)
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
15:30-16:30 Subgroups to develop lists of deliverables
Educational activities
Museum institutions
Non-museum institutions
Public outreach
Future directions (other funding opps?)
16:30-17:00 Subgroup reports
17:00 Adjourn
Dinner on Your Own
09:00-10:30 New museum directions
iPlant (Tomislav)
online parasite data (Scott)
Barcode of Life (Bob)
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
11:00-12:00 Designing an evaluation plan (Phil, connect with UM person)
Goals
Data
Implementation
12:00-13:30 Lunch
13:30-15:00 Subgroups on Integrated Inventories: what do we do in Year 1?
Educational activities
Museum institutions
Non-museum institutions
Public outreach
Evaluation
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
15:30-17:00 Thinking ahead: where do we go from here?
Plans for the coming year
Short term (annual) goals
17:00 Adjourn