Exercise 1

Planning

The volume of analogue data (paper logs) arriving at the IBAN headquarters will soon exceed their capacity to digitize, so the steering committee has decided to reconsider the current approach to this area of their work which has grown unmanaged for the last few years. To date, this is how work has been organized:

  • The paper logs arrive via post. The secretary opens the packages and collates the logs.

  • There are five volunteers with basic computer skills using two shared computers to digitize the paper logs. These volunteers are also citizen scientists themselves, so they are familiar with the taxonomy of the order Lepidoptera, and with the species occurring in the country where the headquarters of IBAN are located.

  • The digitizers come and go whenever they have time so they usually check for computer availability via phone. Sometimes there are time clashes and some have to go home as the two computers are busy, and sometimes the two computers are unused.

  • When they digitize, they usually pick one paper log at a time from the pile, and digitize it (if they can). Common problems that occur are that:

    • the digitizer does not know the species observed (misspellings occur),

    • the digitizer does not know the area where the sampling has occurred,

    • the digitizer cannot read the handwriting or the language in which some of the comments are written.

  • A single taxonomic expert gets all the digitized tables and produces the report and distribution maps based on them. Normally she needs to discard around 15% of the digitized data because of inconsistencies, misspellings or other errors that she does not have the time to check.

Exercise 1a

Analyze the financial component of their new digitization plan

The steering committee is analyzing the following options for their new digitization plan, all of which have financial implications on their already reduced budget. They know they can only implement TWO of these options, so they need to choose wisely. Use the exercise sheet to provide a recommendation on which two options they should select and explain why you chose them.

  1. Option 1: Buy three more computers so all digitizers can work simultaneously.

  2. Option 2: Offer financial support to the national offices to buy flatbed scanners and send/share the logs electronically instead of by post.

  3. Option 3: Offer financial compensation to the digitizers. They will not be able to pay all five of them the equivalent of a regular salary, but could cover the costs of part time positions for three of the volunteers.

  4. Option 4: Purchase existing biodiversity digitization software in English, which comes with taxonomic entry check and in-built aids to correct geographical information.

  5. Option 5: Contract a software development company to develop customized digitization software. For the same price of the commercial software, the developers will provide a solution in the local language, which will match the original data schema perfectly and will also provide a web data portal to expose the results of the digitization effort.

  6. Option 6: Organize a course for the five digitizers to improve their skills in taxonomy, computer use and biodiversity informatics standards.

Exercise 1b

Assign roles

These are the human resources available for this digitization effort. How would you assign roles to maximize the efficiency of the digitization process and produce data of the highest quality possible? Use the exercise sheet to provide your answers.

  1. Administrative assistant. No taxonomic knowledge. Basic computer use. Can read 3 languages.

  2. Volunteer 1. Basic taxonomic knowledge. Basic computer use.

  3. Volunteer 2. Basic taxonomic knowledge. Basic computer use.

  4. Volunteer 3. Basic taxonomic knowledge. Basic computer use. Can read 3 languages.

  5. Volunteer 4. Basic taxonomic knowledge. Basic computer use. Can read 3 languages.

  6. Volunteer 5. Basic taxonomic knowledge. Advanced computer use (including GIS and data analysis tools).

  7. Taxonomic expert. Advanced taxonomic knowledge. Advanced computer use (including GIS and data analysis tools).

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