Agreement to Help Secure Valuable Global Resource

The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS, www.marinespecies.org) is used by over 80,000 marine biologists from across the world every month and represents the only expert validated list of global marine life. A recent agreement will help secure funding for this valuable global resource.

The agreement means that royalties will be paid to the organisation behind WoRMS, the Society for the Management of Electronic Biodiversity Data (www.smebd.eu), from every sale of Thomson Ecology’s software tools. Mark Costello, WoRMS Steering Committee and ex Chair, who signed the agreement on behalf of WoRMS explains the benefits:

“We believe that making the WoRMS list available, and regularly updated, through software tools in the marine field will have a positive impact on the quality of scientific reporting. WoRMS content is already freely available to anybody from the website, but Thomson Ecology provide added value to users by incorporating it within their desk-top software for users. The income generated for WoRMS by Thomson Ecology will help us to improve the quality, scope and sustainability of the database, in service of the scientific community.”

Tom Gardiner, senior product manager for Thomson Ecology, explains the benefits to users:

“The WoRMS list has become an industry standard since its creation, and our users have increasingly fed this back to us. Incorporating the list into our software, means users around the world can now easily increase the value of their data asset. Our software tools have always helped increase efficiency and now users can benefit from reports and outputs being aligned to WoRMS.”

Thomson Ecology will now begin work to integrate the WoRMS list into existing software tools, TREx and Unicorn. To celebrate the agreement, Thomson Ecology is offering vouchers to purchase the new version of TREx for £50 (+VAT) when it is released in a couple of months (see promotion details). This offer is open until end August 2013.

To request any voucher(s) you can email your requirements:

software@thomsonecologysoftware.com


Sources
WoRMS News Article
Thomson Ecology TREx Promotion

Photo
NOAA's National Ocean Service Flickr Account (Creative Commons)