iBOL invites countries to participate as Nodes of the project. New Nodes officially join iBOL by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Institutions and individuals who affiliate to iBOL Nodes can then participate in its programs by contributing to the activities of its Working Groups and Core Facilities.
The MOU defines iBOL Nodes as "networks of leading researchers and key organizations affiliated to iBOL and engaged in DNA barcoding and/or in funding and advancing biodiversity science in a country or region of the world."
iBOL is the sum of its Nodes. They are the fundamental units that provide resources and services (e.g. build capacity and set priorities for barcoding in their country/region).
Institutions or individuals interested in being involved with iBOL start by identifying themselves with (or as) a Node, effectively committing their interest, knowledge, expertise, money, materials, services or other resources which then count as part of the Node's contribution to iBOL's overarching goals.
What Nodes do
Institutions and individuals who want to take an active part in their Node's effort within iBOL agree to channel their interest, knowledge, skills, expertise, money, materials or other resources into one or more (or even many) of iBOL's ~20 Working Groups, organized under ~five Themes.
A subset of the institutions and individuals active in Working Groups will be engaged as contributors of samples and/or data to the barcode library, via the 11 Working Groups in Theme 1 (WGs 1.1 to 1.11).
What Working groups do
The iBOL MOU states: “iBOL Core Facilities are laboratories and technology platforms established by, or affiliated to, iBOL Regional and Central Nodes. These core facilities provide the DNA barcoding community with the sequencing, analysis, bio-informatics, bio-repository, training and/or knowledge mobilization resources appropriate to a project of iBOL's scale."
What Core Facilities do
RESOURCES:
- iBOL Nodes Memorandum of Understanding (PDF)
- MOU Appendix I - Participation Guidelines (PDF)
- MOU Appendix II - Node Profile Template (MS Word)
- MOU Appendix III - Data and Resource Sharing Policies (PDF)