EDIT WP6

Scratchpads
“getting biodiversity on the web”

An intuitive web-application, enabling communities of taxonomists to collaboratively build, share, manage and publish their data on the web. Scratchpads are easy to use, adaptable to taxonomists needs, and provide powerful tools for managing biological information.

Apply for your Scratchpad at http://editwebrevisions.info/signup

Major features include:

• Unlimited content (pages, images, maps, bibliographies, phylogenies, DNA sequences, specimen lists, classifications, forums) or define your own content type
• Workflows for data import (includes MS Excel support) and editing
• User controlled hierarchies to classify content
• Unlimited and controllable sites membership
• Public, private and user defined access groups
• Context sensitive user profiles
• Rich text (WYSIWYG) editing & intuitive administration
• User defined web addresses

Scratchpads are independent and unconnected, allowing communities to create distinct customized sites tailored to their needs. They are built on the content management system Drupal (http://drupal.org/), and managed on servers at the Natural History Museum, London. Content is archived such that it can be cited like a traditional publication.

Scratchpads enable users to:

Create maps

• Point & click simple Google maps
• Automatic Google Map mashups of geo-referenced data
• Country presence/absence Google maps
• Upload records via MS Excel templates
• On-site single record entry & editing

Build discussion forums

• Unlimited forums, sub-forums, posts & pages
• Built in spam protection

Mange documents

• Upload any document type to user created filestores
• Attach documents to any webpage

Build classifications and classify content

• Upload a taxonomic hierarchy via MS Excel templates
• Directly import taxonomic hierarchies from uBio “classification bank”
• Supports multiple classifications with single, multiple or no hierarchy
• On-site record entry, editing & export
• Controllable exposure to classify any content
• Subscribe to uBio Classification bank feeds*
• Expose classifications to uBio harvester tools*
• Browse classifications with PigmyBrowse*

Manage and display scholarly publications

• EndNote, XML, RIS & bibTex import/export
• In-line citing to build reference lists on any page
• Selectable reference output styles
• Integrated with “taxonomy” for taxon authority citations
• On-site single record entry & editing with “autocomplete” functionality
• Sort or filter by year, reference type, title & author
• OpenURL integration for single click article access
• RSS publishing

Create and manage specimen lists

• Upload lists via MS Excel templates
• On-site single record entry & editing
• Automatic “publication” of your records with GBIF*

Build image libraries

• Unlimited web upload/download of images
• Workflows for bulk and single image annotation
• Extensive browse and search options
• Online annotation of image features
• Flickr integration*

Import your datasets

• Define new “data types” and associated fields
• Import data from an Excel spreadsheet
• Allow on-site single record entry & editing

Manage lists of genes & DNA sequences

• Define lists and vocabularies for genes
• Import data from an Excel spreadsheet
• Allow on-site single record entry & editing
• Single click Genbank import*

Store & display phylogenetic trees

• Upload and annotate phylogenies in Newick format
• Navigate and display huge phylogenies with Rod Page's WebTreeView*

Create custom views of your data

• Pull together information from across your site
• Create “Species Pages” with default templates*
• Create custom data views*

Administration

• Add, delete and edit registered users
• Create custom user profiles
• Customize all site content
• Create private groups for collaboration
• Moderate and control user comments
• View extensive logs about the sites users
• One click local backup for additional peace of mind*

*Coming Soon