New ISB Executive Committee (2017-2018)

The election of the 2017 – 2018 ISB Executive Committee (EC) took place last October. Please join us again in giving a warm welcome to Nicole Vasilevsky and Rama Balakrishnan to the Executive Committee, and congratulating Sylvain Poux for his reelection.

Cecilia Arighi has been elected as the new Chair of ISB, Nicole Vasilevsky is the new Secretary, and Sandra Orchard continues serving as Treasurer for the 2017-2018 period. The Executive Committee is also composed by Suzanna Lewis, Peter McQuilton, Andrew Su, and Zhang Zhang. As always, please reach out to any of us on the ISB EC as your representatives. The official handover date for the new EC took place November 1st.

After many years of service to the Biocuration community as members of the ISB Executive Committee, we bid farewell to Melissa Haendel and Monica Munoz-Torres. We are thankful for their invaluable contributions to the improvement of the International Society for Biocuration.

We again would like to thank all the candidates for their time and effort in running for election, and of course, all the ISB members who voted. Your participation in the society’s activities is greatly appreciated. We would like to also thank this year’s volunteers which oversaw the electoral process:

  • 2017 Nominating Committee: Pascale Gaudet, Stanley Laulederkind,  Raja Mazumder, Elvira Mitraka, and Randi Vita.
  • Elections Officer: Mary Ann Tuli
  • Membership Officer: Lorna Richardson

Biocuration 2018 Travel Fellowships

Call for Applications: ISB Travel Fellowships for Biocuration 2018

The International Society for Biocuration and the 11th International Biocuration Conference invite current ISB members to apply for Travel Fellowships to attend the 2018 conference in Shanghai, China.

Details

We are pleased to provide current ISB members with a travel fellowship opportunity. We intend to support up to ten (10) applicants. Students, junior curators, curators from low-income countries, and curators from countries suffering from natural disasters are encouraged to apply. Selections will be prioritized by financial need.

Please note that applying for a fellowship does not guarantee that you will receive funding.

Awards
Each award will be issued as reimbursement for up to CHF $ 1,000 per fellowship depending on the costs of your registration and travel (e.g. hotel, flight, and ground transportation). 

  • ISB Travel Fellows must be able to cover their own conference registration fees and travel cost before attending the conference. ISB Travel Fellows will then submit receipts to request a reimbursement from ISB. Save your receipts! 
  • A bank transfer for up to CHF $1,000 – depending on your registration and travel costs – will be arranged for ISB Travel Fellows.
  • The Biocuration Travel Fellowships Committee will advise you on how to receive these funds as reimbursement at the end of the conference.

Requirements and Procedures
Each applicant for a travel fellowship must satisfy the following conditions:

  • The applicant must be an active ISB member. To become a member go here: https://www.biocuration.org/membership/membership-levels/
  • The applicant should have submitted a poster or oral presentation at the Eleventh International Biocuration Conference.
  • Only the presenting author from a multi-author abstract may apply for a fellowship.
  • The applicant must submit an accompanying letter explaining why s/he is requesting travel funds and how s/he envisions that attending the Biocuration Conference will benefit her/his career.
  • Application Deadline: application materials should be sent to ISB via email to intsocbio@gmail.com with the subject line ‘Travel Fellowships to Biocuration 2018’ on or before January 31, 2018.

Notification of award will be sent via email by 16 February, 2018 and announced on the ISB website after acceptance of the award.

Applicants should review visa requirements and make all necessary arrangements on their own. The conference can provide an invitation letter for registered participants. Please contact biocuration2018@126.com to request a letter of invitation.

Sincerely,

Your colleagues at the ISB Executive Committee.

Announcing the 2018 Biocuration Awards

The International Society for Biocuration (ISB) is happy to announce the 2018 Biocuration award. Next year, the ISB will give the Biocuration career award to a person who has made sustained contributions to the field of biocuration.

Biocuration Career Award

The Biocuration Career Award recognizes biocurators in non-leadership positions who have made sustained contributions to the field of biocuration. The recipient will be required to present a talk at the Biocuration 2018 Conference, with expenses paid by the ISB. The nominations will be reviewed by the ISB Award Committee, comprised of one member of the ISB’s Executive Committee (ISB-EC) and six (6) additional members from the wider biocuration community; these members were nominated by the ISB-EC based on diversity in area of expertise, organization type, role, and geographic location.

 Who can nominate and/or be nominated?

  • Any currently active ISB member may nominate anyone in the field of biocuration, whether the potential nominee is a member of ISB or not.
  • Members of the ISB can make no more than 1 nomination per award.
  •  Those who hold Principal Investigator or Group Leader positions are not eligible for the Biocuration Career Award.
  • Current members of the Executive Committee or the ISB Award Committee are not eligible for the awards.
  • Self-nominations will not be considered.

 How to submit your nomination:

  • Nominations should be sent via email to the award committee at intsocbio@gmail.com with the subject line “Biocuration Award Nominations”.
  • The nomination email should contain the following fields:
    • Nominator details (name, e-mail and affiliation, member of ISB);
    • Nominee details (name, e-mail and affiliation);
    • Short list of scholarly contributions (a maximum of 50 words);
    • Brief description of why you are recommending this person (a maximum of 350 words).
    • The recipient of the award will be invited to give a presentation at the upcoming International Biocuration Conference, in Shanghai, China, from 08-11 April 2018, with all expenses paid by the ISB.

Deadline for submitting nominations: 15 December 2017

Results of 2017 Elections of ISB Executive Committee

The results of the 2017 Elections of the
ISB Executive Committee are in!

Congratulations to 
Dr. Rama Balakrishnan, Dr. Nicole Vasilevsky,
and Dr. Sylvain Poux!

 

We express our sincere gratitude to all ISB members who participated in this year’s electoral process with your vote. One hundred and four out of 226 eligible ISB members voted in this year’s election; a breakdown of the votes we captured is attached.

Your votes have elected Rama and Nicole as new members, and re-elected Sylvain for a second term in the Executive Committee. Rama and Nicole will fill two open positions when the terms of Monica Munoz-Torres and Melissa Haendel come to completion on 31-October-2017.

Please join us in thanking Moni and Melissa for all their work over the past years! 

We would like to also express our sincere gratitude to the rest of the nominated candidates who considered volunteering their time as part of the ISB-EC this year:

Dr. Sirarat Sarntivijai, Dr. Taner Z Sen, and
Dr. Christopher Southan.

We are also very grateful with the following ISB members who volunteered their time for a successful execution of the 2017 EC election:

  • 2017 Nominating Committee: Pascale Gaudet, Stanley Laulederkind,  Raja Mazumder, Elvira Mitraka, and Randi Vita.
  • Elections Officer: Mary Ann Tuli
  • Membership Officer: Lorna Richardson

Thank you again for participating in the 2017 ISB Electoral Process!

Sincerely,
Your Colleagues at the ISB Executive Committee. 

ISB is hiring a part-time Administrator

The Executive Committee of the International Society for Biocuration is recruiting a part-time administrator (20 hours / month) to assist with us with a few tasks of paramount importance to all our members.

We are looking for a highly organized, enthusiastic candidate with demonstrated ability to work well independently.

Details and requirements about this exciting opportunity are included below, and a flier is also available here. Please help us spread the word!

Sincerely, 
Your colleagues at the ISB Executive Committee

Position title: ISB Administrator

Position summary
This position will be responsible for managing and carrying out specific objectives of the International Society for Biocuration (ISB) . This position will report to the Executive Committee (EC) of the ISB.

  • Responsibilities
    – Coordinate communications with ISB members
    – Preparation of agenda and minutes of EC meetings
    – Project management associated with EC decisions and initiatives
    – Generating and soliciting web site content
  • Basic qualifications
    – Bachelor’s degree or 2 years experience in similar position
    – Ability to work independently
    – Highly organized
    – Reliable access to high speed internet for videoconferencing
  • Preferred qualifications
    – Experience in communications, project management and outreach for supporting scientific societies
    – Background in life sciences, bioinformatics, and/or data science
    – Experience with WordPress
  • Position details
    – Part-time: 20 hours / month
    – Pay: commensurate with experience
    – Location: Work remotely from anywhere

To apply for this position, please send your resume and cover letter, including the names of two professional references, to intsocbio@gmail.com with the subject line “ISB Administrator.” All applications received by 2017-10-27 will be given full consideration, and applications will be accepted until the position is filed.

DATABASE (OUP) offers discounts for active ISB members

Database, the Official Journal of the International Society for
Biocuration offers discounted publishing rates for currently active ISB members.

International Society for Biocuration member rates of £640.00/$1,280.00/€960.00 for Database are now available in Author Services.

ISB members can validate their eligibility for these discounted
society member rates in the Article Charges page in ‘Author Services’ by inserting the email address associated with their active ISB membership into the box labeled as ‘membership number’.

Learn more about publishing in Database on the ‘Instructions to
Authors‘ page.

Call: Host The 12th International Biocuration Conference

ISB_logo

Dear Colleagues,

The Executive Committee of the International Society for Biocuration would like to once again invite tenders to host the 12th International Biocuration Conference during the Northern Spring or Summer of 2019.

Individuals and organizations interested in applying may do so by sending a proposal to the ISB Executive Committee (intsocbio@gmail.com) on or before August 31,  2017.

The successful bidder will be notified by October 1,  2017. The ISB Executive Committee will publicly announce the selected organization or individuals during the 11th International Biocuration Conference, to be held in Shanghai, China in April, 2018.

Format:  

Proposals should be short; length should not exceed one side of an A4 or US letter size sheet, using 11 point font.

The proposal should contain:

  • The name and institution of the local organizer
  • Details of the proposed venue for up to 350 participants
  • The range of dates available for the conference
  • A brief outline of a strategic plan to attract a broad range of participants from the Biocuration community
  • As fair gender representation is positively encouraged by the ISB; we would also like to know how the applicant intends to promote this.

In a continued effort to bring our meeting to curators in all geographic regions, we strongly encourage ISB members to put forward proposals to bring the ISB meeting to your region once again, or for the first time! Based on ISB meeting region rotation, for ISB 2019 we are encouraging a European location, but will also consider other locations.

REGIONS ROTATION:

Asia and Australasia

Europe

North America

This Call for Applications is also available on the ISB website at http://www.biocuration.org

For more information about the ISB and our previous conferences, please visit: http://www.biocuration.org

We look forward to hearing from you!

Your colleagues at the ISB Executive Committee.

Biocuration Career Description Survey

We encourage you to participate in the Biocuration Career Description Survey.

This survey aims to gather and analyze information about the field of biocuration. The resulting data will be aggregated, analyzed, and shared with the community. Our hope is that the results from this survey can be used to promote and inform scientists, students and newcomers about our field. No identifying information will be revealed in reporting results of this survey. The results will be shared with the community at the 2018 Biocuration conference and made available online. 

The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete and can be found at http://bit.ly/BiocuratorCareerDesc

Call for Biocuration Training Materials

Share your training materials with our community!

Have you taught a course or workshop on biocuration?
Have you trained new hires or students to be biocurators?
Do you have any educational materials related to biocuration?

The ISB is now collecting biocuration training materials.  See the growing list of teaching resources  here.

To share your materials, you may use this form or contact us at  intsocbio@gmail.com.  In your email include the title, list of authors, a description about the subject discussed on your resources, the URL where they can be found, the type of license for distribution, and the type of material you wish to distribute.

Educational materials

Announcing 2017 ISB Travel Fellowships Awardees

Congratulations are in order!

Please join us as we extend our best wishes to the winners of the 2017 ISB Travel Fellowships to attend the
10th International Biocuration Conference being held in
Palo Alto, California, USA on March 26-29.

This year’s ISB Travel Fellowships were awarded to:

Pratibha Gour
Laura M. Jackson
Xiangying Jiang
Jake Lever
Sushma Naithani
Cecile Pereira
Nicole Marie Ruiz-Schultz
David Alberto Velázquez Ramírez
Naihui (Ashley) Zhou
Qinghua Wang

2017 Travel Fellows
2017 ISB Travel Fellows & ISB Executive Committee

Congratulations!

Our sincere thanks to the 2017 ISB Travel Fellowships Committee:
Cecilia Airghi, Suzanna Lewis, and Edith Wong.

Search by Categories