Statement of Product Direction for 2019 The VIVO Leadership Group has developed and adopted a Statement of Product Direction for VIVO product development for 2019 bit.ly/vivo-direction-2019. Bringing together the interests of those in product evolution, the committers group, the development community, ontologists, and the interests of our sites and members, the statement of direction lays out four broad directions for 2019. Over the course of the coming year, we will hear much more about developments in these areas. Some areas are ready for immediate work and advancement while others will take more planning and consideration. The statement of product direction is a giant step forward for the VIVO Project. For the first time, we have a consensus statement on the direction of product development for the coming year.

The Statement of Product Direction for 2019 bit.ly/vivo-direction-2019 will orient our development, grant, and event efforts, as well as shape work for architecture and development sprints.

Please review the statement and share your thoughts on the VIVO lists and Slack.

I hope you will be able to contribute to the work ahead.

Scholars at Cornell We received the following unfortunate news from Dean Krafft at Cornell University this week:

I regret to announce that due to university-level choices on supporting faculty profiles, the Cornell University Library will no longer be able to maintain the Scholars@Cornell web site beyond December 31, 2018. We still remain deeply interested in making use of semantic technologies to describe research, researchers, and scholarship. We plan to continue to be engaged with the VIVO community, and we look forward to continuing collaborations, new grant funding opportunities, and all efforts to provide open solutions for the improvement of scholarship and research. 
Dean Krafft

We look forward to continued collaboration with the wonderful team at Cornell!

Smithsonian Profiles The Smithsonian Institution (https://www.si.edu/) has launched Smithsonian Profiles (https://profiles.si.edu/). You can read the press release here: Smithsonian Launches Profiles of Scholarly Experts – Smithsonian Libraries Unbound

The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum, education, and research complex.  From Wikipedia:

The Smithsonian Institution (/smɪθˈsniən/ smith-SOH-nee-ən), established on August 10, 1846 "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge," is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. Originally organized as the "United States National Museum," that name ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967.

Welcome Smithsonian Institution!

Two more new sites evaluating VIVO But wait, there’s more! Two more sites have joined the VIVO community this week:

Welcome!

Ontocale joins VIVO as a Service Provider Ontocale (http://ontocale.com), headquartered in Bucharest Romania, has joined VIVO as a service provider. Brian Lowe, founder of Ontocale, is also one of the originators of VIVO. Brian has deep knowledge of VIVO and the VIVO ontology. You can learn more about Ontocale and the Duraspace Service Provider program here: Ontocale Joins DuraSpace Service Provider (DSP) Program

Interested in becoming a VIVO Service Provider? Contact Erin Tripp at Duraspace. We are often asked if there are companies that help with VIVO work. Yes, there are. You can find VIVO Service Providers on our web site here: VIVO Service Providers

Trip reports from ISWC The International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) bring together researchers, corporations, librarians, and many others interested in the development of the semantic web and related technologies. This year’s conference was held in Monterey, California. This week, I came across two very good trip reports regarding the conference. Paul Groth of the University of Southampton researches intelligent systems with a particular focus on the web and science applications. His report can be found here: http://bit.ly/2CKPKa2 Juan Sequeda, computer scientist, author, and founder of Capsenta posted his report here: http://bit.ly/2CJc1Vs Both are very interesting perspectives on incredible developments in knowledge graphs and information representation. ISWC 2019 - The 18th International Semantic Web Conference (https://iswc2019.semanticweb.org/)) will be in Auckland New Zealand, October 26-30, 2019.

Interest Groups VIVO has interest groups that meet regularly to discuss topics of common interest. The Development Interest Group meets each Tuesday at 11 AM US eastern time to plan sprint, review open issues and pull requests. The group is facilitated by Andrew Woods.

Apps and Tools, Community Engagement, and Implementation each are looking for new facilitators. Facilitators set and agenda, sent out meeting reminders, and host meetings on VIVO Zoom. It’s a great way to meet people in the community. Interested? Please send an email to Julia Trimmer or Mike Conlon . We’re happy to help you get started!

Go VIVO!

Mike

Mike Conlon 
VIVO Project Director