Open Monthly Meeting Notes: October 2025
The open monthly meetings aim to improve the exchange of information within ORDS-MV. This platform should serve for all interested people (students, post docs, senior scientists, professors,..) to exchange information around the topics of Open Reproducible Data Science and Statistics, to discuss questions, to express wishes and to make plans.
In October 2025 we (virtually) discussed the following topics:
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Biodiversity data We exchanged experiences with using GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. GBIF is an international network and data infrastructure funded by governments worldwide, providing open access to data about all forms of life on Earth.
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Historic data Almost every research institute and university holds a wealth of historic data — handwritten notes, typewritten reports, paper archives in cardboard folders, or data tables hidden in diploma theses from the 1980s and earlier. Our group discussed how to digitalis these valuable datasets. This includes scanning, developing digital folder structures, applying OCR techniques, identifying suitable service providers, and defining essential metadata. We are considering organizing a workshop on this topic. In any case, it remains an important focus area within our network, and simply sharing experiences and ideas is already proving very helpful. Experience already exists at Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut/Institut für Nutztiergenetik with Paperless-ngx, a community-supported open-source document management system that transforms physical documents into a searchable online archive, at the University of Rostock with Transkribus, an AI powered platform for digitizing and interpreting historical documents of any handwritten form or the company Planet AI located in Rostock.
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The next ORDS event is coming up, though it has been postponed to 22/23 January 2025. The focus will be on sequence data, and it is being planned in collaboration with GFBio e.V..
Thanks to all participants and looking forward to meeting you at the next monthly meeting or event.