Announcing recruitment for BotCamp 2009

March 10th, 2009

Join BotCamp in Chapel Hill!

Fun, interactive learning

BotCamp uses technologies like Facebook, Flickr, and blogs to learn about the natural world and collaborate with others.

Spend a weekend in Chapel Hill!

Join other area college students during two all expenses paid on-campus sessions in Chapel Hill.  During these two sessions you will:

  • Meet and make connections with experts from the UNC Herbarium, North Carolina
    Botanical Garden and School of Information and Library Science.
  • Learn how to identify and describe plants that are in your back yard.
  • Experience firsthand the type of research botanists conduct.
  • Learn about careers in botanical science
  • Receive a certificate from the North Carolina Botanical Garden.
  • Receive a $150 stipend for your time and have all your expenses paid.
The program consists of two on-campus sessions:
  • June 19th
  • July 24th & 25th  (hotel in Chapel Hill provided for the night of the 24th)

If you are interested please complete this form.  

If you have any questions about the program, please let us know!

Bot 2.0 at DC2008

September 29th, 2008

Bot 2.0 team members Dr. Jane Greenberg and Michael Shoffner attended the 2008 International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications (DC2008) in Berlin, Germany.  Michael presented a poster on the Bot 2.0 and BotCamp project entitled, Web 2.0 Semantic Systems: Collaborative Learning in Science:

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The poster is also available as a PDF on the DC2008 conference site.

Bot 2.0 attends 2008 CCLI Conference

August 15th, 2008

Jane Greenberg, Francis Carroll McColl Term professor at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and principal investigator of the BOT 2.0 program, attended the 2008 Course Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) conference in Washington D.C.

Dr. Greenberg presented a poster on Bot 2.0 at the conference covering an overview of the program, participants, and initial research findings.
BotCamp CCLI

(click on image for larger version)

BotCamp Photos!

August 9th, 2008

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Photos from of first BotCamp group visiting campus at UNC are available on the Bot 2.0 Flickr page.

Campers use Web 2.0 technology to study botany

August 9th, 2008

From UNC School of Information and Library Science News Release:Fourteen students from the Triangle community participated in the first BotCamp on July 31 through Aug. 2. BotCamp is part of BOT 2.0, an innovative program featuring a curriculum that weaves together four key themes – botany, environmental conservation, the use of social technologies and metadata literacy.

Using digital cameras and camera phones to capture images of plants and trees in the field, the enthusiastic campers downloaded them to Web 2.0 social computing technologies such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and blogs. In the classroom, they focused on using metadata tagging for classification of each image.

“Researchers have demonstrated that students learn more effectively when they are actively engaged in the learning process and self evaluation,” said Dr. Jane Greenberg, Francis Carroll McColl Term professor at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and principal investigator of the BOT 2.0 program.BOT 2.0 applies this active learning approach using Web 2.0 social computing technologies to increase student engagement in botanical science and to address known recruitment and retention challenges.”

Students with nontraditional backgrounds from Alamance Community College, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University and UNC at Chapel Hill were selected for the camp. The camp included outings to the UNC Arboretum, the NC Botanical Gardens, the Herbarium, Mason Farms and other natural surroundings with botanical experts, as well as information management and technology sessions at SILS.


BotCampers and camp counselors from left to right, Curtis Williams; Dr. Jane Greenberg, SILS faculty, and BOT 2.0 PI; Eunisa Simone Lindsey; David Woodbury, SILS student; Dr. Alan Weakley, Botanical Garden Herbarium curator; Destiny Harris;Komi Segno Messan; Candace Farrish; Tosha Roberts; Andeliene Croce (in tree); Tracy Anderson (in tree); Morgan Robinson; Jacob Kramer-Duffield, SILS student; Heather Wolff; Jennifer Kellie Walters; Dr. Evelyn Daniel, SILS associate dean for academic affairs, and BOT 2.0 co-PI; and Domonique Bulls.
Photo by Dr. Brian Sturm.

BOT 2.0 is a collaborative effort between the Metadata Research Center at SILS the North Carolina Botanical Garden, the UNC Herbarium, the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) and Information Technology Services. It is a two year program funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation and it is led by Greenberg, and Alan Weakley, curator of the UNC Herbarium, a department of the NC Botanical Garden.
For more information about BOT 2.0, access the Metadata Research Center Web site.

Innovative curriculum introduces Web 2.0 technology to botany education

June 19th, 2008

News Release from UNC School of Information and Library Science:

June 18, 2008 — An innovative curriculum designed to recruit, educate and retain nontraditional students in the study of botanical science has been created at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The curriculum weaves together four key themes – botany, environmental conservation, the use of social technologies and metadata literacy.

The SILS/Metadata Research Center at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS), the North Carolina Botanical Garden (NCBG), the UNC Herbarium, the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) and UNC Information Technology Services have created  BOT 2.0 (Botany through Web 2.0, the Memex and Social Learning). BOT 2.0 is a two year project funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation and it is led by Dr. Jane Greenberg, Francis Carroll McColl term professor and director of the Metadata Research Center at SILS and Dr. Alan Weakley, curator of the UNC Herbarium, a department of the North Carolina Botanical Garden.

Education in botany, the scientific study of plant life, traditionally focuses on lectures and exams, forcing students to memorize complex descriptive terminologies and taxonomies. “This conventional approach is at odds with knowledge about how people learn science,” says Greenberg. “Researchers have demonstrated that students learn more effectively when they are actively engaged in the learning process and self evaluation.  BOT 2.0 applies this active learning approach using Web 2.0 social computing technologies, such as Facebook, MySpace, blogs, cell phones, etc., to increase student engagement in botanical science and to address known recruitment and retention challenges.”

“BOT 2.0’s technology is conceptually modeled on a memex, a memory augmentation framework that allows students to share and re-find digital information through the application of structured metadata and collaborative tagging,” said Micahel Shoffner, the project’s technology architect from RENCI/ITS.  (Metadata, as defined by TechTerms.com, “describes other data. It provides information about a certain item’s content. For example, an image may include metadata that describes how large the picture is, the color depth, the image resolution, when the image was created and other data. A text document’s metadata may contain information about how long the document is, who the author is, when the document was written, and a short summary of the document. Metadata is frequently used on Web pages to help describe the content, allowing search engines to locate information when requested.” Tags are descriptions in the code used to create Web pages.)

To introduce the program, the team has organized a summer camp, called BotCamp, for selected students with nontraditional backgrounds. BotCamp will kick off in July with 17 students from Alamance Community College, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University and UNC at Chapel Hill.

“Our team is very excited about BotCamp, an invitational summer program that includes outings to the UNC Arboretum, the Herbarium and other natural surroundings with botanical experts, as well as information management and technology sessions at SILS,” Greenberg said. “We want to empower students, not only by using technology, but by enhancing their knowledge of botany and by teaching them about the power of metadata and tagging as they build a collective memex.”

“Web 2.0 technology offers an innovative and exciting opportunity to engage students in botany, throughout the State of North Carolina and beyond,” Weakley said.

Evelyn Daniel, a SILS professor and project principal, commented that “a long standing goal of the collaboration between botany and information science, over the last six years, has been to use information technology to link students with the natural world.  Bot2.0 allows us to extend our efforts to undergraduates.”

Interested students and those from other colleges or universities who would like to participate in BotCamp 2009 should contact Dr. Greenberg by calling 919.962.8066 or by sending e-mail to: janeg@email.unc.edu

New: $250 Stipend and Deadline Information!

April 11th, 2008

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We are excited to announce that attendees will receive a $250 stipend for participating in the BotCamp program. If you are interested in attending the program, please apply now. The deadline for applications is May 7th.

To apply, just follow these directions. For more information see the information below or contact dnw@bot2.org.

BotCamp Flyer

April 10th, 2008

Our informational brochure is now available for download here!
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Apply to BotCamp Now!

March 9th, 2008

well.gifWe are now seeking students to participate in the BotCamp summer program. Join area college students who will participate in the three-day, expenses paid, BotCamp at UNC-Chapel Hill, along with two hands-on virtual classroom sessions in June and August. There is no cost and technology assistance will be available to participants!

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At the BotCamp you will:

  • Meet leading researchers and educators in Botanical Science and Information Technology
  • Explore behind the scenes at the North Carolina Botanical Garden and UNC’s Herbarium.
  • Enjoy hands on experience with the latest web technologies at UNC’s number one School of Information and Library Science and the Renaissance Computing Institute.
  • Participants completing the Bot 2.0 course will receive a certificate from the North Carolina Botanical Garden.

To be eligible for consideration:

  • No previous experience or courses in Botany required
  • Undergraduates from NCA&T, NCCU, UNC-CH, NCSU, & Alamance CC are welcom to apply

If you are interested please send an email to David Woodbury (dnw@bot2.org) and include:

  • Your Name
  • Contact Information (email and phone number)
  • Name of your College or University
  • Graduation Year
  • Major (if you have one)
  • A short (around 100 words) description of your interest in the program

If you have any questions about the program, please let us know!

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BotCamp Recruitment Begins Soon

February 25th, 2008

We will begin actively recruiting undergraduates for our BotCamp summer program in the upcoming weeks. If you are interested in participating or just want to know more, contact us at info@bot2.org.