Entomology services online, Available/not available, needed / not needed

Community and Forum → Other questions. Insects topics → Entomology services online, Available/not available, needed / not needed

Peter Khramov, 10.10.2014 0:26

Idea: to create a website of services for entomologists.
Questions: do you need one or not, and whether there is already something similar or not.
The bottom line: a website is being created that allows entomologists to store and share information of interest in various forms. That is, everything is always at hand and you can always give a link to any material to colleagues. And, if desired, close/open access to information to certain users.

Taxon tree and classification

In one way or another, the information that entomologists work with relates to species and other taxa of insects. Accordingly, the project is based on a taxon tree. This is the only content that is available immediately, even before the first user arrives on the site.
— The tree will be incomplete. But still quite voluminous — according to preliminary estimates, more than a million taxa at the start.
— A part of the tree structure may not appeal to specific users, because its only correct one does not exist. But you can change the structure for yourself, and changing it (if it is necessary at all) in most cases is still much easier than creating it from scratch.

Then the person works on modifying the existing information and uploading new information that they need, and also exchanges it using the following services on the site.

Shared services

Universal services for all users.

Taxon tree
An entomologist can change the taxa tree within the scope of their specialization. Move/merge/disconnect/delete / add taxa. This involves two levels of operation:
Taxon curators make changes to the "common" tree — the tree that is displayed for everyone by default.
Ordinary users make changes to "their" tree — a tree that is displayed for them and for the users on whom they will share it (they will share information about it, for example, as part of a work group).

Species sketches and descriptions of supraspecific taxa
Filling three levels:
- Completely free form.
- A free form of presentation, but divided into subsections (distribution, external features, etc.) and with a mandatory indication of the source.
- Formalization of features for the possibility of selecting a taxon based on them (so that you can find all the scoops of Ukraine flying in June).

Galleries with photos and videos
You can view it (with selection based on criteria), and you can use it in other services. Automatic linking to the taxon tree, and through it - to all other services.

Article Publishing Service
It is unlikely that this will immediately be a media option with a corresponding increase in ratings from publications, but still, if the author wishes, all the possibilities for publication are available.

Service for publishing blog entries (travel reports, etc.)
A more popular / relaxed version than articles.

Service for maintaining entomological collections online
It was discussed in detail in several topics on Molbiol, and is now being launched on Lepidopter. The bottom line is that you can keep records of collection instances online with reference to the taxon tree and all services on the site, and with the ability to change information about instances with other users (or not change, but on the contrary, close everything from everyone).

Library
Upload files for individual, limited, or general use.

Individual services

Services that are developed/adapted to individual projects of users and work groups.

Individual software solutions are developed for projects that do not fit into the overall functionality of the site. For example, for collecting and processing statistical data, for online determinants, and so on
.That is, a user or group of users says: we want to post and use such and such information, but existing general services do not allow us to do this in a convenient way. The administration says: we will do it for you.

All of this is overlaid by

- Ability to comment/discuss all available information in all sections
— Community/Forum for discussing common topics
— The ability to restrict access to any of your information at different levels (open to everyone, close from everyone, password access, access of individual users, all registered users, etc.)
- Ability to work in groups with appropriate user rights within the group.
- Multilingual interface and the ability to interact with foreign colleagues.

In this topic, I want to hear your opinion, whether this is necessary or not. Perhaps there is already something similar, then I ask for links. And if you have any thoughts on what services/functionality all this can be supplemented with, it will also be interesting.

This post was edited by Asar - 10.10.2014 00: 26

Comments

16.10.2014 10:27, Peter Khramov

Yes, in general, not even so strange. People are used to acting older, since they are not spoiled by these very services. Here you can't get away from paper books, not that... :-)
Eol yes, it's partly similar, but there are much fewer opportunities than described here.
In general, probably, first we will make a smaller version based on Lepidoptera, so that people can feel what it might look like in real life, and then it will be clear whether it is necessary or not. The only thing is that you can't immediately see something from the butterflies, but you would have done it almost immediately for others. If anyone has something for the projects for lepidoptera section, please let us know. We will do everything for you as an example.
I remind you that the project is something that does not fit into the other (standard) sections described here. For example, the determinant (very good if polytomic). It is only desirable that there is more information in it, otherwise the example with maculines that already hangs on the site is not very presentable in this regard.

This post was edited by Asar - 10/16/2014 10: 29

20.11.2014 19:16, antlook

Just the resources of Encyclopedia of Life, Catalog of Life, GBiF, Discover Life, Global Name Index, etc. are tied to ITIS http://www.itis.gov/downloads/index.html
for files to download and the ability to fasten the database
, see Full ITIS Data Set (MS SQL Server) -- itisMSSql.zip and so on.
Others use synchronization mainly with them (quiet implementation of the American School of Taxonomy)
Yes, it's probably worth looking at the development of events, but for now it turns out a parallel reasoning with a "well-known" resource http://www.biolib.cz/en/maingallery/ (but it doesn't have localization, the ability to keep a diary, or edit taxonomy in addition to moderators....)
Apparently, this is why the database (diary) is usually kept in:
excel,
excel,
any outliner on vybor

Likes: 1