This site is intended to provide a broad educational curriculum that will cover the major topics making up the field of biodiversity informatics. The goal is to have each topic presented by the “expert” in the field, thus providing users with access to lectures and presentations by those who have developed or used extensively the tools or challenges in question. As this curriculum builds and improves, presentations can be revised as experts improve or evolve their methods, and presentations by other experts can be added, even if on the same topics.

In each case, when a module of the curriculum has been completed, three elements will be provided: (1) a link to a video presentation (which may be in several parts) mounted on YouTube (www.youtube.com), (2) links to literature relevant to the topic at hand, and (3) links to a document or documents with sample data, exercises, or other “hands-on” illustrations of the topics discussed in the video. In all cases, the youtube videos include “Biodiversity Informatics Training Curriculum” in their descriptions, so that the set of videos can also be accessed directly on youtube.

For more information, either regarding the use of the curriculum or regarding participating in developing it, please contact A. Townsend Peterson, Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, via email at town@ku.edu.