VIVO 2016 Conference Call for Proposals is open through March 14.  The VIVO conference will be held this year in Denver, Colorado, August 17-19.  The Call for Proposals is now open.  Propose a panel, talk, poster, or workshop.  In the past, we've had two calls for proposals – one for workshops and a second one for papers, posters, and panels.  This year, the calls have been rolled into one.  Have something you'd like to present?  Here's your chance.  Have someone you think should be invited to give a talk at the VIVO conference?  Wondering whether your proposal would be good for the VIVO conference?  Share your questions and ideas with the Program Chair, Manuel de la Cruz Gutierrez.  

Open VIVO.  The OpenVIVO Task Force is up and running!  A big thank you to all who volunteered their time and effort to work on Open VIVO.  We have a team, a bunch of work to do, a project plan, a task force, and a first weekly call, this Tuesday at 1 PM US Eastern Time.  Want to help?  Join us on WebEx.  We will be going over the work plan, and the scope of six sub-projects: 1) infrastructure, 2) Journal and Organizational RDF, 3) Figshare ingest, 4) DOI ingest from CrossRef, 5) Attribution and Contribution ontology, and 6) Authentication via ORCid.  If any of that sounds interesting, please join the call!

Intent to Merge.  As you may know, VIVO is a project of Duraspace, financially supported through membership in Duraspace, a non-profit corporation, dedicated to open source software, and the preservation of the scholarly record.  In January, the boards of Duraspace and Lyrasis, also a non-profit corporation with open source projects and focused on library and cultural heritage organizations, announced their Intent to Merge.  This is a public declaration that the two companies are considering a merger, and doing the necessary due diligence to prepare for a final decision by the respective boards.  As a board member of Duraspace, I participated in the exploratory committee efforts leading to a recommendation to the Duraspace board that we move to Intent to Merge.  Lyrasis offers complementary strengths and the combined company could potentially improve its ability to support open source software, including VIVO.  You can read more about the Intent to Merge – boards are seeking feedback from the community.

Implementation Call call this Thursday. The Implementation Interest Group will have its call this Thursday at 1 PM Eastern US time.  This call is a great place to start if you are new to the VIVO community.  Questions about VIVO?  Are you starting a VIVO implementation?  Have you been asked to evaluate VIVO?  This group can help.  No experience with VIVO is required.  Calls discuss implementation basics, getting data into VIVO, and everything else you might want to know about having a VIVO at your institution.  Contact Paul Albert for further information.  For dates of upcoming VIVO calls and meetings, see the VIVO Calendar of the front page of the VIVO wiki.

Go VIVO!

Mike

Mike Conlon
VIVO Project Director