Curation and Biodiversity Informatics

The preservation of natural history collections, together with proper documentation, digitization and accessibility, is of crucial importance to meet today’s challenges. These collections represent a vast reservoir of biodiversity data that can be used e.g. to inform conservation strategies, understand the evolution of species, ecosystem complexities, and the impact of climate and environmental change.

However, the sheer volume of data held within these collections can make it difficult to extract meaningful insights. National and international biodiversity data repositories and infrastructures allow open sharing and using of data, advancing our understanding of the natural world. Biodiversity informatics and digitization enable us to apply computational tools and techniques to data, revealing patterns and relationships that might otherwise go unnoticed. To do this in a sustainable, future-proof manner, it is imperative that the data is curated in a way that is consistent with global data standards and the F.A.I.R. and C.A.R.E. principles.

During the course, subjects ranging from specimen curation, digitization, integration and subsequent publication in data repositories using best practices will be presented, and students train the use of web-based tools to retrieve data and information.