[Taxacom] Fwd: Any suggestions of open source monitoring software/web sites that stores and makes available location images?

[Tony Rees]

Dear all,

Maybe I am talking to myself here, but...

It may help if you think of the proposed images for storage as you would
any type of [scientific/non-scientific] data. To my mind this then
articulates a few important principles:

1. Long term preservation. Wherever you place the images, you want to be as
certain as possible they will still be in existence (possibly with
migration of course) in *n* years time where n = any number you like (5?
10? 50? 100?)

2. Discoverability and access. If an item is preserved/stored, it should be
guaranteed to find it knowing relevant search criteria. Internal indexing /
keywords / taxonomic terms / geographic search methods can all help here;
also good user prompts e.g. "more from this taxon" (or locality or uploader
etc. etc.), broader/narrower search, and so on (this is easy to envisage in
either a taxonomic- or geographic- based system, less so for some others).

3. Value adding by the system: for example good internal data organisation
/ categorization, onward sharing to other relevant initiatives, exposure to
Google text and image searching, more...

4. Scale / uptake / user base. You want to put the images where someone is
likely to look, both now and in the future. Also scale often equates to the
number of people who will care about maintaining the system into the longer
term.

5. Cost (to the project) and barriers to entry. If you use one of the
systems mentioned to date, there should be no cost to the project. Barriers
to entry would include things like the ease or difficulty of setting up
user accounts, complexity of the image upload process and required
keywording etc., and whether there are constraints on use of the images
once uploaded (for example you would not want to assign exclusive use to
others). In general I believe most of the systems discussed cater for CC0
or unrestricted-use images, or CC-BY which means unrestricted sharing but
with attribution required (probably the current best practice in my
opinion; if users want to maintain e.g. commercial release rights over high
resolution versions they simply upload just low resolution versions to the
public repository).

6. Special needs. For example if catering for (and displaying) time series
at a location is a "must have", that may narrow your set of options
considerably. On the other hand it sounds like your set of needs is fairly
open ended so maybe looking for a very specialized system would be
counter-productive at this point.

The above is really just stepping back from the specific sytems mentioned
to date and looking for some common threads or over-arching considerations.
If I have missed any, please chime in!. I trust this is helpful,

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
https://about.me/TonyRees


>>>> > >
>>>> > >
>>>> > > -----Original Message-----
>>>> > >
>>>> > > > From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On
>>>> > > > Behalf Of Mary Barkworth
>>>> > > > Sent: 28 November 2017 21:00
>>>> > > > To: (Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu)
>>>> > > > Subject: [Taxacom] Any suggestions of open source monitoring
>>>> > > > software/web sites that stores and makes available location
>>>> images?
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > I am interested in encouraging people to record standardized
>>>> > > > images of a location and saving them to a web site, with
>>>> > > > appropriate metadata, so
>>>> > > that
>>>> > > > they could be used to track changes over time at that location.  I
>>>> > > > know this sort of work is done, but I would appreciate being told
>>>> > > > of a
>>>> > > program,
>>>> > > > web site and or organization that brings such resources together
>>>> > > > the way collection networks bring specimen data together.
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > Mary
>>>> > > >
>>>> >
>>>> >
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