Community

This page describes what the Paleo Data Working Group is, who is involved, and how you can get involved.

This website is brought to you by the Paleo Data Working Group (PDWGPaleo Data Working Group. Community of practice centered around collections-based paleo and informatics professionals, pronounced “pidwig”), which is a community of practice centered around collections-based paleo and informatics professionals. PDWG was launched in May 2020 as a driving force for broader conversations about paleontological data standards and integration of fossil data into larger data ecosystems. We formed as a result of a decade of increasing collaboration between paleontology professionals digitizing their collections, including as part of an earlier Paleo Digitization Working Group hosted by iDigBioIntegrated Digitized Biocollections. A project funded (2011-2026) by the U.S. National Science Foundation to develop an integrated national infrastructure for digitization of existing biodiversity collections in the United States.. Current activities include regular “happy hour” meetings, workshops, community outreach, and engagement with parallel groups and processes. We also maintain a community pipeline for carrying conversation through to documentation and guidelines, such as the content curated in this knowledge hub.

Organization

PDWG strives for low organizational overhead. That said, the following groups keep this community alive and functioning. See who belongs to each group in the list of people involved, below.

The Organizing Team is composed of 3-5 members who volunteer to commit to leading the working group for at least a year and who meet regularly (approximately monthly). This group sets the vision and strategy for PDWG. They also coordinate and host happy hours, and manage access to shared communication platforms including the Google Group, Slack Workspace, and Google Drive. Contact the Organizing Team at paleodatawg@gmail.com.

The Knowledge Hub Editorial Board is composed of 3-5 members who set style guides and procedures for content contributions to the Paleo Data Knowledge Hub (this site). They manage the process of integrating community content, and may also generate content themselves. Contact the Knowledge Hub Editorial Board on GitHub.

The Paleo Data Portal Steering Committee is composed of 2-3 members who actively use the Paleo Data Portal (PDP)A Symbiota portal that supports the management and sharing of data associated with paleontological specimens that are made available for research via permanent repositories. The scope of the PDP is limited to extinct organisms and their traces (i.e., fossils). Geological samples, archaeological and anthropological materials, as well as neontological specimen data fall outside this scope and should not be cataloged in this portal. and who make operational decisions for it. This committee is modeled after other successful examples in the world of Symbiota. Contact the Paleo Data Portal Steering Committee at paleodatawg@gmail.com and include “paleo data portal” or “PDPPaleo Data Portal. Symbiota-based data portal for fossil collections” in your subject line.

Get involved

Any and all paleontology collections (or allied) professionals are encouraged to participate in PDWG! There is no formality to being a member. We follow these community norms, including acting and interacting in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, and diverse community.

Quick start! Show up to a happy hour meeting, join our Slack workspace, and/or request to join our Google Group .

As a community of practice, we regularly use the following tools:

  • GitHub: PDWG has an organization on GitHub which hosts multiple repositories, including the one for this site. In addition to hosting content, we use GitHub for project management of our happy hourName of the regular meetings hosted by the Paleo Data Working Group meetings. Any member of PDWG is welcome to request an invite to be a member of the GitHub organization.

  • Google Groups: We use Google Groups as a listserv where we post announcements about upcoming happy hours, workshops, or other events of interest. Request to join the Google Group here. Due to several instances of spam, only members with permission can post to the Group. Please ask if you would like permission. We have received feedback that not everyone can use Google Groups with their work emails, which can be annoying; until/unless we move to a different mailing list platform, the solution is to subscribe with a separate or additional email.

  • Google Drive: Our shared folder on Google Drive is a neutral, non-institutional space where community members can curate and manage access to collaborative working documents and resources that do not fit well (or yet) on this knowledge hub. Happy hour meeting materials live within this Google folder. Please request access if you think you should be enabled to edit files in this folder!

  • Slack: Our primary tool for asynchronous conversation between individual community members and interest groups within the PDWG community. To join the Slack workspace click here. If you are unfamiliar with Slack, see this 3-minute video overview of how to use it up for the Paleo Data workspace. Ours is a free Slack workspace, which means messages are only accessible for a 90-day history.

  • Zoom: We host happy hour and other synchronous meetings on Zoom, and occasionally use Zoom’s built-in collaboration tools like Whiteboard. Look for a link to the happy hour Zoom room in announcements posted to the Google Group and Slack.

We also frequently use EasyRetro as a feedback tool for community activities, either synchronous or asynchronous, and Zenodo is an essential tool for contributing individual/institutional expertise to this knowledge hub–learn more about that in our contributor guidelines.

List of institutions and people involved

Since 2020, PDWG has engaged close to 200 individuals from over 50 institutions. Participants vary in their engagement levels and come from a wide range of institutions, including independent museums, university collections, and representatives from US federal agencies. Current members of this group are largely based in the United States, but international members are very welcome. Active PDWG members who wish to be acknowledged are listed in the table below. If you should be added to this list, or your affiliation should be updated, please let us know by emailing paleodatawg@gmail.com!

Affiliation Active PDWG Member(s)
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (ANSP) Alejandra Martinez-Melo
independent Ben Norton, Erica Krimmel (Knowledge Hub Editorial Board)
Indiana University, Bloomington (IUB) Jess Miller-Camp
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZ) Christina Byrd
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLA/LACM) Juliet Hook
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (SNOMNH) Margaret Landis, Roger Burkhalter
Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History (SCMNH) Wayne Thompson
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) Alex Lawrence (Organizing Team), Holly Little (Organizing Team), Adam Mansur (Knowledge Hub Editorial Board), Matt Miller, Amanda Millhouse, Jessie Nakano
Stanford University (LSJU) Chrissy Garcia
University of Colorado Museum of Natural History (CUMNH) Talia Karim (Organizing Team)
University of Kansas Natural History Museum & Biodiversity Institute Natalia López Carranza, Lindsay Walker (Knowledge Hub Editorial Board, Paleo Data Portal Steering Committee)
University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN Thomas Hickson
University of Wisconsin Geology Museum (UWGM) Carrie Eaton
Yale Peabody Museum (YPM) Jessica Utrup

The PDWG logo, the trilocorn (i.e. a trilobite + a unicorn), is our working group mascot. The trilocorn lives and thrives in our souls, encouraging us to be the best data and collections managers we can be. Consider the trilocorn as the patronus of paleo collections, protecting against the slippery slope of data chaos.