News and Announcements

2010

April 11-16 - Helping Islands Adapt workshop in Auckland, New Zealand. The benefits of GISIN as a global inventory of invasive alien species and examples from The GISIN List were presented by Invasive Species Data and Information Specialist and GISIN Steering Team member, Michael Browne at the Helping Islands Adapt workshop in Auckland, New Zealand. See Topics:

3b "The importance of invasive species inventories as a standard part of invasive species project design" (p.22);
3i "Why it is important to collect and share invasive species information, and some useful tools and resources" pp.38-39; and
3j "Preliminary list of invasive species resources that might be relevant for the focus regions" pp. 40-41

In: Helping Islands Adapt. Proceedings of the Helping Islands Adapt Workshop. A workshop on regional action to combat invasive species on islands to preserve biodiversity and adapt to climate change. April 11-16, 2010. PDF

2009

November 02-06 - International Congress on Biological Invasions (ICBI) in Fuzhou, China. Two members of the GISIN Steering Team, Michael Browne and Annie Simpson, made presentations at the ICBI. Annie's presentation was entitled "The Global Invasive Species Information Network: information sharing for informed decision-making." Michael co-authored a presentation with Jerry Cooper entitled "Developing an invasive species biosecurity information infrastructure." Annie was also invited to chair the ICBI symposium (#S12) – "Knowledge management, decision-making tools, capacity development, and public awareness." More than 500 invasive species specialists from more than 40 countries participated in the Congress, exchanging ideas on improving the management of biological invasions at national, regional, and global levels.

September - New PHP Toolkit and New Caching System Available for Data Providers. A new edition of the PHP toolkit is now available. This updated edition was designed to match changes to the GISIN Protocol, allow editing of metadata, and fix a number of defects. The toolkit is available under "Provide Data". You can check the URL under "Data Providers". We also have implemented a first version of the new caching system. You can see the results of caching events under "Data Providers". For more information, please contact Jim Graham.

July 25-30 - GISIN3 Data Standards Workshop. A third technical workshop on defining the basis for a prototype GISIN System was held at Elmira College in New York from 25-30 July 2009. At the workshop, which was sponsored by the US National Biological Information Infrastructure and held in collaboration with Discover Life and Elmira College's Department of Biology, representatives from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network, and several invasive species information systems of global importance once again refined data standards to improve the GISIN system. A productive discussion about the use of Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) was also part of the meeting.

Workshop Summary Report (September 2009) PDF

2008

October 27-30 - Becoming a Data Provider to the Global Invasive Species Information Network poster, live demonstration, and oral presentation at Organization of Fish and Wildlife Information Managers (OFWIM) 2008 Annual Conference and Business Meeting: Using Innovative Technology to Move From Planning to Implementation, 27-30 October in Albuquerque, NM, USA. Abstract (PDF)

October 19-25 - Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Annual Conference, at the Western Australian Maritime Museum, Victoria Quay, Fremantle (Perth), Australia. Programme

Session 18 - The Global Invasive Species Information Network
on Friday, 24 October, from 11:00-12:30 pm.

Audio-visual presentations now available online:

Building a TAPIR-Lite Toolkit for the GISIN - Graham, Jarnevich (delivered by Simpson) Audiovisual | Abstract

Invasive Species Information Management and Exchange in the Americas: the IABIN Invasives Information Network (I3N) - Fournier (delivered by Olson) Audiovisual | Abstract

Data Models to Share Invasive Species Information Through the GISIN - Simpson, Graham, Sellers, Browne (delivered by Simpson) Audiovisual | Abstract

Invasive Species Interest Group Meeting
on Sunday, 19 October from 2:00 - 5:00 pm.
Notre Dame Education Center, Room 36.103. No registration required.

October 5-14 - IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain

GISIN participating in Safeguarding Biodiversity and Livelihoods from Biological Invasion: Global Sharing of Experience and Information as a Key Step to Effective Management at Local Level Learning Opportunity (# 375) on Wednesday, October 8 from 9:00 am - 1:00 pm. Abstract is on page 12 Learning Opportunities Newsletter (PDF). Learning Opportunites at the IUCN World Conservation Congress are free but registration is required. To participate, you must apply using the online Learning Opportunity application system. You need to be registered to the Congress before you can do that. Click here to Register for the Congress.

GISIN participating in Partnership for a Comprehensive Invasive Species Information System (CISIS) Knowledge Cafe (# 378) on Tuesday, October 7 from 9:30 am to 11:00 am. Abstract | Detailed Description

August 9-12 - GISIN2 Data Providers Workshop. A second technical data providers' workshop for first adopters of the GISIN System was held in Elmira, New York, USA to continue to discuss the GISIN Protocol Data Models and improve the GISIN search prototype. This workshop was made possible through funding from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) and logistical support from The Polistes Foundation.

Workshop Summary Report (August 2008) DOC | PDF

June 2-5 - GISIN1 Data Providers Workshop. A technical workshop was held in Athens, Georgia, USA to test implementation of the GISIN search prototype by connecting distributed online invasive species information systems through web services, exposing/indexing their data holdings for simultaneous search. As this was a test implementation, participation in the workshop was by invitation only. This workshop was made possible through funding and logistical support from the Secretariat of the Group on Earth Observations (GEOS), the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with additional logistical support by The Polistes Foundation. The Steering Team of the Global Invasive Species Information Network and others from around the world are also collaborating on this effort. For more information contact Annie Simpson at asimpson@usgs.gov.

Workshop Summary Report (June 2008) DOC | PDF

May 22 - I3N Costa Rica successfully tests the GISIN PHP Toolkit against their invasive species database!

May 21 - FishBase successfully tests the GISIN PHP Toolkit agains their finfish database! See the Test Query Results

2007

May [GISIN in the media]
GISIN Listed first in Table 1- "Examples of international and national information networks; many of these databases and networks are working together to share information and to achieve increasingly global coverage of IAS." In: Invasive alien species in an era of globalization. Laura A Meyerson and Harold A Mooney. May 2007. In Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution: Special Issue Ecology in an Era of Globalization 5(4):199–208. Full Text | PDF

"...web-accessible databases with unified formats are being assembled by an international collaborative effort of scientists and managers (www.gisinetwork.org)..." In: Assessing invasive alien species across multiple spatial scales: working globally and locally. Richard N Mack, Betsy Von Holle, and Laura A Meyerson. May 2007. In Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution: Special Issue Ecology in an Era of Globalization 5(4):217–220. PDF

"Examples of useful and easily accessible database systems and tools include: ... GISIN (Global invasive species information network): www.gisinetwork.org/" In: Invasive species data applications and data sharing across the Americas. Barry Rice. May 2007. In Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution: Special Issue Ecology in an Era of Globalization 5(4):w15–w16. PDF

NEWS ARCHIVE (2004 - Last Year)

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