jtklein / 2016gbifchallenge Goto Github PK

Hi guys,
As mentioned I will be able to start coding next week. At this point I'd like to take a step back, and see if we can formulate some general specs for the challenge entry product. After reading the challenge statutes may be it's best if we first state clearly which gaps we are addressing with the project. And furthermore, for the client side, I would need to know what's our target audience/user. I have to say that because my scientific work previously was mostly with mountain plants, so I haven't had much interaction with GBIF, yet. I'll open another issue for the client-side prototype specs todo until the deadline.
My take on this would be:
Target Audience/Users:
Young biodiversity professionals. I think that if we focus too much on the general public, we will run in to issues with proper species identification (at least if we want to produce high quality data to be uploaded to GBIF).

Gaps:
1.) Geographic: As a Pokemon Go ripp-off I think this is our major point, directing the user to places where no data has been collected.

2.) Taxonomic: I am happy for your suggestions. I would love to see some plant feature. My basic idea would be something like a PokeDex but for species and higher taxonomic ranks. So, that the user can brag about all the species he/she has recorded. In this regard, we could also direct the user to undersampled taxonomic groups.

3.) Smaller level functionality should be limited for a set of demo or sample species. I will discuss in the backend thread.

4.) Temporal: This would also tap into the ignorance category. What I've been missing from GBIF is an assessment of temporal variation in habitats. For this product, I think we can easily send, e.g. a notification to the user suggesting him to visit a place not far away from him, where he previously recorded species but no data is available, e.g. from a different season.

{ 4.) Audience: It would be very nice to have the app ready for the general public to start uploading data. However, I think we would need some species identification evaluation scheme. I have no idea, if this is feasible until the entry date.}

To get a roadmap until the challenge entry date, maybe it's best to define what should be in the app:

1. A map centered on the user's location. Directing the user to areas where to record data (gently without forcing, basically she can record anywhere she likes).

2. Camera access. Once a suitable location has been reached, does the camera pop up? I would prefer a button to start the camera at any time.

3. Caching data at the time of recording. I would have to read through the GBIF API, to see what data needs to be recorded (or more importantly formatted I guess).

4. Connect to the user's GBIF profile in order to upload data. Entails user verification and caching the profile info on the device.

5. Upload. Picture and metadata. For the prototype I would say instantly. Ideally, i.e. if there's still some time left, caching data on SD card and uploading on wifi connect.

6. Query the already recorded data from the user to create a kind of SpeciesDex, a summary of her activity on GBIF, to target to taxonomic gaps.

7. Optional: Increase gamification character: enable customization of profile (e.g., picture); animations on the map, a function to battle at conferences (e.g., who has sampled the most tardigrades), animations on the camera screen (butterfly net?).

What am I missing?

Hi Guys,

This is the backend data I can generate.

1. For a group (e.g. butterflies) a map of recording effort (where has most effort been spent recording the group). This can be used to direct people to areas where more records are need

2. For each species in a group a map of the predicted distribution (i.e. where I think it should be)

3. For each species a map of 'high value recording areas'. These are areas where I think it is likely to be but where there are no records yet.

I will use a method called Frescalo to undertake this analysis using data read in from GBIF and for the purposes of the MVP we should focus on Great Britain as I have the underlying habitat data needed for the analysis. All maps would be at a fairly low resolution (10km*10km squares) due to the resolution of the data and the computing power required to run the analysis.

Hi again,
may be it's best if we put together the available infrastructure of the project.

Currently my main questions are:
Do we have access to a server from where I can access the processed geo data? And also processed taxonomic data?

Can we store profile information on a server? Or only query GBIF API for an existing profile?

Do we upload data directly to GBIF or via one of our servers?