This Call for Proposals is available on the workshop web page at:
http://saab.ischool.utexas.edu/psdc2016/
------------------------------------------

The First International Physical Samples and Digital Collections (PSDC
2016) workshop will be held on October 14th in Copenhagen, Denmark in
conjunction with the ASIS&T AM 2016--2016 Annual Meeting of the Association
for Information Science and Technology. We solicit participation from information
studies as well as communities that work with physical samples--for example, earth sciences,
biology, paleontology, hydrology, archeology--to make this
workshop a success.

The goal of this workshop is to bring together the community of
researchers, curators, and practitioners who are interested in studying
the issues involved in the management of samples, sample collections,
and sample-based data in the field, in the lab, in repositories, in data
systems and scholarly publications. The intention is to assemble
the existing community of scholars and practitioners from both coasts of the Atlantic
as well as invite those with emerging interests in this area. A secondary
goal is to focus the attention of the information science
community on the tremendous opportunities for research in this
space and for collaborating with researchers in the Earth Sciences, broadly construed.

Research in the Earth Science disciplines depends on the availability of
representative samples collected above, at, and beneath Earth's surface,
on the moon and in space, or those generated in experiments. These
physical samples serve as fundamental references for generating new
knowledge about the earth and contribute to a deeper understanding of the processes
that created and shaped it, assess the availability of natural resources, and measure
the risk of natural hazards. Many samples have been collected at great cost and with
substantial difficulty, are rare or unique, and irreplaceable.
TheEarthCube <http://www.earthcube.org/>(http://www.earthcube.org)
Research Coordination Network (RCN)iSamplES
<http://www.earthcube.org/group/isamples>(Internet of Samples in the
Earth Sciences) aims to advance the use of innovative
cyberinfrastructure to connect physical samples and sample collections
across the Earth Sciences with digital data infrastructures to
revolutionize their utility in the support of science.


Important dates
---------------
  * August 15: paper submissions due
  * August 23: Notification of acceptance
  * October 1: Submission of final, camera-ready papers
  * October 14: PSDC 2016 Workshop


Topics
------

Presentations will address a broad range of issues and challenges at the
intersection of Earth Science physical samples and information science
that facilitate the data collection, management, and use of earth
samples. Topics include but are not limited to:

   * physical sample collection curation
   * information behavior and needs, user modeling
   * evaluation of existing environments models
   * theoretical models
   * system architectures
   * social-technical perspectives on digital methods for sample management
   * policies and workflows
   * data analytics and visualization
   * user interfaces
   * cyberinfrastructure architectures, applications, and deployments
   * distributed data management information systems
   * impact of digital libraries on earth sciences
   * linked data and its applications
   * personal information management of physical samples
   * retrieval and browsing of sampels
   * scientific data curation, citation, and scholarly publication
   * social networks, virtual organizations, and networked information
   * sample collection archiving and preservation


Proposal Formats
-----------------
  We encourage you to submit proposals for:

   * *full papers*: 6-8 page submissions that report on mature work
     or stake out a position on an issue of significance to the community
   * *work-in-progess and position papers*: 3-4 page submissions that
     discuss early results on nascent projects
   * *posters or demonstrations*: 1-2 page description

All contributions must be written in English and use the ASIS&T submission
template, which is available at:
https://www.asist.org/files/meetings/am16/AM16-Template-proceedings.doc


Submission
----------
Please submit papers by May 1st via the workshop's EasyChair submission
page: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=psdc2016


Organizers
----------
Please contact us with your questions.

Unmil Karadkar ([log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]&T%20workshop%20inquiry>)
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin

Kerstin Lehnert([log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]&T%20workshop%20inquiry>)
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Chris Lehhardt([log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]&T%20workshop%20inquiry>)
Renaissance Computing Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill