Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience

Applications in Plant Sciences

Emily Gillespie¹  Ashley B. Morris²  Shawn Krosnick³  Caleb Powell⁴  Joey Shaw⁴  Alaina Krakowiak⁴  Rachel Fuller⁴  Erica Rylander⁴  Brad Ruhfel⁵ 

[1] Department of Biological Sciences Butler University 4600 Sunset Avenue Indianapolis Indiana46208USA;Department of Biology Furman University 3300 Poinsett Highway Greenville South Carolina29613USA;Department of Biology Tennessee Tech University 1 William L. Jones Drive Cookeville Tennessee38505USA;Department of Biology, Geology, and Environmental Science University of Tennessee at Chattanooga 615 McCallie Avenue Chattanooga Tennessee37403USA;University of Michigan HerbariumUniversity of Michigan 3600 Varsity Drive Ann Arbor Michigan48108USA;

关键词: biodiversity data;    digitization rates;    herbaria;    natural history collections;   

DOI  :  10.1002/aps3.11415

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Premise Herbaria are invaluable sources for understanding the natural world, and in recent years there has been a concerted effort to digitize these collections. To organize such efforts, a method for estimating the necessary labor is desired. This work analyzes digitization productivity reports of 105 participants from eight herbaria, deriving generalized labor estimates that account for human experience. Methods and Results Individuals’ rates of digitization were grouped based on cumulative time performing each task and then used to estimate a series of generalized labor projection models. In most cases, productivity was shown to improve with experience, suggesting longer technician retention can reduce labor requirements by 20%. Conclusions Using student labor is a common tactic for digitization efforts, and the resulting outreach exposes future professionals to natural history collections. However, overcoming the learning curve should be considered when estimating the labor necessary to digitize a collection.

【 授权许可】

Unknown