Taxonomic Coverage page mockup

[Matt Jones]

Peru,

What became clear to me just now was you intended for people to edit 
this table in place.  I was imaging a dialog box that would pop up for 
editing a taxa, and that dialog would allow for full expression of the 
parent taxa.  We should probably discuss this on the phone.

Your point 3 below I think addresses some of my earlier comments, so thanks.

Matt

Perumal Sambasivam wrote:
> Hi Matt/Matthew,
> 
> A few clarifications with respect to your comments:
> 
> 1. "Not all taxa use the ranks listed in your table"
> 
> If we were to have a 2-col table of just the RankName and RankValue, I am
> not sure how the user would be able to have recursive taxonomic
> Classification (or is this not necessary?). Matthew and I had originally 
> thought that by having it in a 7-col table (1 col for each level), we 
> would create the recursive taxonomic classification without the user being 
> involved in it. If the user had to define the taxon rank-values 
> recursively, wouldnt it be a big hassle (opening so many dialogs one 
> within another)?
> 
> Or, like Matthew suggested, in this same table, we could allow the user to 
> define the rankname and rankvalue within each column. We could have a 
> custom widget consisting of 2 textboxes or something like that.
> 
> 2. As for the common names, that column would just be a list of all column 
> names. I thought we cld have a dropdown box that just list all the names, 
> with an entry "Add/Edit Common Name" , which if selected, would open a new 
> dialog that shows the names for each level where the user can add/edit. 
> But yeah we cld just have a list instead of a dropdown.
> 
> 3. For coded values from the data tables, there is an option of importing 
> the column values in the section names "Import Taxon Data"..the user could 
> select the data table and the correct column in it for importing. 
> 
> 
> -Perumal
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, 11 Feb 2004, Matthew Brooke wrote:
> 
> ~ Matt:
> ~ 
> ~ A few questions/discussion points regarding your Taxonomic Coverage page 
> ~ mockup comments:
> ~ 
> ~ 1) "Not all taxa use the ranks listed in your table..."
> ~ 
> ~ a) Perumal and I talked about the approach you describe before coming up 
> ~ with the current one, but the problem with a 2-col table is that every 
> ~ taxonomic definition would need a separate table (and probably a 
> ~ separate dialog), whereas perumal's mockup allows all the data to be 
> ~ presented clearly and concisely in one place. Even if we did a 2 or 
> ~ 3-col table, wouldn't we still need some kind of "summary" table like 
> ~ this one (compare with party dialog & party table) ? We figured that the 
> ~ clearest way to show the info was in this form, rather than a tree etc, 
> ~ and it also allows all entries to be editable in place (except common 
> ~ name - see below).
> ~ 
> ~ Would either of the following work?
> ~ 
> ~ i)  make the ranks (column headings) editable, but still use this 
> ~ layout? If a single dataset contains different taxon ranking methods for 
> ~ different entries (for example, if some rankings include Division, but 
> ~ others include Phylum), then we may still need to go to multiple tables, 
> ~ but would this be a much less-common scenario?
> ~ 
> ~ ii)  represent the info in tabular form without using col headings - so 
> ~ for each entry we could indicate the rank alongside the name; eg:
> ~ 
> ~   ... | Family: Flagellariaceae | Genus: Flagellaria | Species: 
> ~ guineensis | ...etc
> ~ 
> ~ ("|" pipes used to show where column dividers fall)
> ~ 
> ~ 
> ~ b) An additional comment:
> ~ 
> ~ "Common Names" can apply to any level of the taxonomy (I think?), but we 
> ~ obviously have a problem representing that in the table as shown (unless 
> ~ each entry has 2 lines?), so we resorted to showing an abbreviated 
> ~ "surrogate" list in the last column (like we do for party etc), which 
> ~ could be clicked/edited in some way to pop up a dialog showing which 
> ~ common names correspond to which ranks. However, a drop-down list (as 
> ~ shown in the mockup) probably isn't appropriate for the "common names" 
> ~ column - since this implies a choice to be made by the user.
> ~ 
> ~ 
> ~ 
> ~ 2) "When people use coded values in their metadata..."
> ~ 
> ~ The middle part of perumal's mockup shows a section entitled "Import 
> ~ Taxon Data" which, if I understand correctly, is where a user would be 
> ~ able to provide the taxon information from existing (or 
> ~ yet-to-be-imported) data tables, as you describe
> ~ 
> ~ M
> ~ 
> ~ 
> ~ Matt Jones wrote:
> ~ 
> ~ > Hi Perumal,
> ~ >
> ~ > That is a nice mockup.  A couple of issues come to mind.
> ~ >
> ~ > 1) Not all taxa use the ranks listed in your table.  For example, in 
> ~ > plants they use 'Division' in place of 'Phylum'.  There are many of 
> ~ > these variants, which is why in eml the system allows the user to 
> ~ > specifiy both the rank and the name (rather than fixing the rank to a 
> ~ > predefined set). So I would prefer a two column table containing 
> ~ > "Rank" and "Name" for the most precise rank provided by the user, 
> ~ > which might have values like "Species" and "Bosmina longistrosis".  
> ~ > You could also list common names in this table if desired as a third 
> ~ > column.
> ~ >
> ~ > 2) When people use coded values in their metadata (ie enumerations) 
> ~ > they'll be defining the codes in terms of taxon names, and that same 
> ~ > process can be used to fill out the taxon coverage info.  So that is 
> ~ > another way through which they might provide the taxon information.
> ~ >
> ~ > Matt
> ~ >
> ~ >
> ~ > Perumal Sambasivam wrote:
> ~ >
> ~ >> Hi All,
> ~ >>
> ~ >> For the taxonomic coverage page, I have a preliminary mockup (pls see 
> ~ >> the attachment).
> ~ >>
> ~ >> It consists of -
> ~ >> 1. A list for entering taxon names. The list consists of 7 columns for
> ~ >> each level of classification. A user could add a species name and 
> ~ >> specify
> ~ >> all the names in the hierarchy. There is also a column for the common
> ~ >> names.  It will be a dropdown box of all the common names of the whole
> ~ >> hierarchy. If user wants to add a common name, a dialog box is presented
> ~ >> with a customlist for each level and the user can add a common name 
> ~ >> to any
> ~ >> level.
> ~ >>
> ~ >> 2. The user can import the taxon data from a particular table. The 
> ~ >> column values will be read, an ITIS lookup will be done for each 
> ~ >> value to determine its level and values in the hierarchy above it and 
> ~ >> the values will be added to the above list. The user can edit any 
> ~ >> value, if needed.
> ~ >>
> ~ >> 3. The user can also optionally specify a new Classification system 
> ~ >> and identifier.
> ~ >>
> ~ >>
> ~ >> Please let me know your comments/feedback on this.
> ~ >>
> ~ >> Thanks!
> ~ >> -Perumal
> ~ >>
> ~ >>
> ~ >>
> ~ >>
> ~ >>
> ~ >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ~ >> Perumal Sambasivam
> ~ >>
> ~ >> National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
> ~ >> University of California Santa Barbara
> ~ >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ~ >>
> ~ >>
> ~ >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ~ >>
> ~ >
> ~ 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Perumal Sambasivam
> 
> National Center for Ecological 
> Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
> University of California Santa Barbara
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Matt Jones                                     jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Fax: 425-920-2439    Ph: 907-789-0496
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
University of California Santa Barbara
Interested in ecological informatics? http://www.ecoinformatics.org
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