[IPT] IPT beta available

[Markus Döring (GBIF)]

+++ Welcome to IPT 1.0 beta +++

GBIF is happy to announce the first public beta version of the GBIF  
Integrated Publishing Toolkit. We have been working for quite a while  
on this software and finally reached a stage where we want to engage  
early users to get feedback. The IPT allows to host and share species  
occurrence or taxonomic checklist datasets based on an extendible  
darwin core as well as pure metadata descriptions for biological  
resources, whether they have been digitised or not. You can find  
further information on the project homepage: http://code.google.com/p/gbif-providertoolkit/


We are providing a public live demo installation at GBIF for anyone to  
try out. To gain access to most of the functionality you will have to  
register as a new user and ask me or Tim to assign you additional  
"manager" rights.
http://ipt.gbif.org

His voice may not be that of Morgan Freeman, but Tim has done a great  
job recording some screen casts to get you started. Before getting  
angry about the still missing user manual (which is being worked on  
and will be ready for the final release) please watch this movie first:
ftp://ftp.gbif.org/projects/ipt/tutorial/beta/9minuteDemo.mov


If you prefer to install the IPT yourself you can find basic  
instructions on the project site and you should also watch Tim playing  
with Tomcat:
http://code.google.com/p/gbif-providertoolkit/wiki/Installation
ftp://ftp.gbif.org/projects/ipt/tutorial/beta/installIPT.mov



We'd like to thank any beta testers already. Your testing will help us  
improve the software and provide new ideas that we will try to  
incorporate in future releases. Please consider the following  
guidelines when testing:
- if you run into any bugs, report them as issues in google code,  
which is linked at the bottom of every IPT page.
- if you have any questions whatsoever, please post them on this  
mailing list instead of contacting us individually. This helps others  
facing the same problems.

For the proper user manual and other documentation like screen casts  
we are always seeking help too. There is even some funding available  
for people willing to spend more time. In any of those case please get  
in touch with our training officer Alberto Gonzalez-Talavan: atalavan at gbif.org


Thanks for your interest.
I can't wait to get flooded with bug reports ;)

Markus



--
Markus Döring
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
GBIF Secretariat
mdoering at gbif.org