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 scientific publications. The intention is both to assemble the existing community as well as invite those with emerging interests in this area. A secondary goal is to focus the attention of the digital libraries community on the tremendous opportunities for research in this space and for collaborating with researchers in the Earth Sciences.

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 the entire universe, contribute to and a deeper understanding of the processes that created and shaped it, assess the 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. The EarthCube (http://www.earthcube.org) Research Coordination Network (RCN) 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:

• May 1: paper submissions due
• May 8: Notification of acceptance
• June 1: Submission of final, camera-ready papers
• June 22-23: PSDL 2016 Workshop

Participation:

Presentations will address a broad range of issues and challenges at the intersection of Earth Science physical samples and digital libraries 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: up to 8 page submissions that report on mature work or in an area of interest
• work-in-progess and position papers: upto 4 page submissions that discuss early results or explore a significant issue related to the workshop topic
• posters or demonstrations: 1-2 page description

All contributions must be written in English and use the ACM submission templates, which are available at: http://www.acm.org/publications/article-templates/proceedings-template.html .

Submission Process

Please submit papers by May 1st via the workshop's EasyChair submission page:http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=psdl2016.

Organizers

Please contact us in case of questions.

Unmil Karadkar (([log in to unmask]))
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin

Kerstin Lehnert(([log in to unmask]))
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Chris Lehhardt(([log in to unmask]))
Renaissance Computing Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill