Ornithological Bugs & Enhancements
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DZM
admin
We're trying to consolidate all the bugs and enhancements needed/wanted for each project into one place, so that the new developer will be able to address as many as possible once he/she begins work.
Please post anything that needs to be done, or you would like to be done, to Ornithological, in this thread. Copy/pastes of old posts are more than welcome.
Please be as clear as possible about exactly what sort of error is happening, and/or what the enhancement will do. Thank you!
Posted
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Seconding Bonnie again...
Enhancements
High priority: be able to submit just a part of a page to the server (not necessarily just the top part of the page). Note - maybe I've understood this wrong. I'd really like to know if your work gets submitted to the server when you click "Finish", or when you click "Next Ledger". This request assumes "Next Ledger".
High priority: be able to work on the same page in more than one browser session, on different computers.
Together, these two changes will allow me to work on ornithology ledgers from both work and home, and mean that I don't have to commit to min. 45 minutes for my work to be valuable (impossible to do in work). This will make me much more likely to transcribe Ornithology records. It's not enough to say that you can submit just the first few rows of a page, and then start another one, as this loses the benefit of gradually getting your eye in on one clerk's handwriting.
Medium priority: be able to choose to continue with the next page of the same ledger. Benefits: continue to used saved (or on-clipboard) entries, continue to work with the handwriting and bird/place names that you've learned how to decipher. Interest of a bit more narrative continuity.
Medium priority: default the first year and batch to be the same as in the previous row.
Medium priority: place the cursor in the first field of a new row so you are in there and can start typing straight away, without having to go keyboard-mouse-keyboard.
UI change (medium priority): move the 'new row' button down so it's next to the 'finish' button; or better still have a 'finish and new row' button where 'finish' is now, accessed by keyboard, so that I can move from one row to the next more easily and with less time shifting between the keyboard and the mouse.
Medium priority: link from the UI to the FAQ, so that it's easy to find answers to questions about 'how do I do this?'.
Medium priority: a "Whole page transcribed" checkbox by the "Next ledger" button, so that the science team know how many rows to expect from each page.
Medium-low priority: a "skip this page" function so you can easily skip a record.
Low priority for me, others may differ: some kind of drop-down predictive text to pick up items from your recent entries, to reduce repetitive typing/chance of errors, and increase input speed. ClipX works well, but something in the page could work even better. This would be nice in the Herbarium as well.
Low priority: base the placement of the next 'new line' on the modal placement of lines so far on the page, so that automatic line placement is better. (Mode not average - those ledger pages from the 1930s where there are a few lines, then a big gap...)
Low priority: place the instructions slightly lower on the page, or allow them to be hidden, or add an inch to the bottom of all the images; because the instructions sometimes obscure the final row or two of a ledger page.
Questions/risks
How is "done" calculated for Ornithology ledgers? Is there a risk that if four transcribers stop early on the same page, will that page be considered 'done'; or are the number of rows e.g. checked against a probable sum?
Bugs
If you hit return a bunch of times (e.g. because of having accidentally turned off num lock and trying to confirm a field; or maybe I had the same brain fart twice in a few days), you get kicked out of Ornithology and back to the main Zooniverse page. I'm just glad I was submitting each row as I went along... but that's another half-transcribed page gone in.
Posted
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Feature idea... will probably fall straight into nice-to-have-but-too-large but hey, I thought I'd ask...
Ability to rotate images to straighten pages of the ledger, so that it is easier to follow one line across the page.
Most images are pretty good but there are some where it gets harder, and I risk sticking dates onto the wrong record.
Posted
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CharlotteBio
Of the issues posted above - my priorities
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Need to be able to return to pages that for one reason or another are incomplete often due to the site dumping one for an accidental key-stroke.
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Need to be able to access a complete list of all pages worked on (including both complete and incomplete pages.
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Need to be able to work only part of a page, then return to the same page several times if needed until we can complete the page. This should be a high priority since you run the possibility of all the rows on the page not being completed if all 4 individuals were unable to complete the page. Does the computer check to confirm that all the rows for the page have been completed?
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Need to be able to go back into a specific ledger and pull up another page to work. When I looked at the tutorial for the Old Weather project the CS can either receive another page at random or go back into a specific ship log until that log is completed. This capability would be extremely helpful on this project. Some CS might prefer to continue to work on a specific ledger once they have figured out the handwriting. The benefit to the project is that once we have mastered reading someone’s handwriting it is much easier to do, therefore, faster and more accurate.
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Enhancement (high priority): be able to submit just a part of a page to the server (not necessarily just the top part of the page).
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Enhancement: be able to work on the same page in more than one browser session.
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Enhancement: be able to choose to continue with the next page of the same ledger. Benefits: continue to used saved (or on-clipboard) entries, continue to work with the handwriting and bird/place names that you've learned how to decipher. Interest of a bit more narrative continuity. (How does the system generate subsequent pages?)
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Enhancement/UI change: move the 'new row' button down so it's next to the 'finish' button; or better still have a 'finish and new row' button where 'finish' is now, accessed by keyboard, so that I can move from one row to the next more easily and with less time shifting between the keyboard and the mouse.
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Enhancement (medium priority): link from the UI to the FAQ, so that it's easy to find answers to questions about 'how do I do this?'.
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Enhancement (medium priority for me, others may differ): some kind of drop-down predictive text to pick up items from your recent entries, to reduce repetitive typing/chance of errors, and increase input speed. ClipX works well, but something in the page could work even better. This would be nice in the Herbarium as well.
Posted
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CharlotteBio
Also" Ability to rotate images to straighten pages of the ledger, so that it is easier to follow one line across the page. (I work on FreeBMD which does allow an image to be rotated clockwise or anticlockwise as necessary).
Posted
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CharlotteBio
So looking forward to being able to go back and pick up a page dropped - have dropped 3 today which is very irritating.
Posted
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CharlotteBio
Have just mistakenly dumped myself out of the Ornithological site AGAIN and can't finish the page I was doing 😦. Would love to be able to go back and complete all the pages which I have dumped or been dumped from by mistake!
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CharlotteBio
Is there any news on the progress with enhancements and ironing out the bugs and bugbears yet please?
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CharlotteBio
Been dumped out of another page - 1932 8-5 entries in the hundreds. Would really really really like to be able to go back and finish please!
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ochichornye
Sorry for crossposting, wasn't sure here or under ornithological FAQs.
Have just transcribed an entire page from a 1930 leger on East African birds. Each line listed the sex of the specimen, but there was no field in the digitisation system to record it. This information is therefore lost.
Could you add a field (perhaps next to species name) where sex is registered?
Posted
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CharlotteBio
in response to ochichornye's comment.
I add bird gender and adult/immature/juvenile after the species name as it appears a shame that the information isn't recorded anywhere. Have had absolutely no feedback as to whether this is appreciated/useless and a complete waste of time - would love for there to be some more direct feedback within a reasonable period of time.
Posted
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CharlotteBio
in response to ochichornye's comment.
Oh - and I was dumped out again 'cos I used the wrong tab to search for some information for the record I was doing. PLEASE can we have the ability to go back and pick up a dropped ledger page?
Posted
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md68135
scientist
Hi @CharlotteBio,
Thanks for your comment. I have posted some thoughts about this here: http://talk.notesfromnature.org/#/boards/BNN0000001/discussions/DNN00005bsPosted
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CharlotteBio
Thank you - I have left a response on that page.
Posted
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CharlotteBio
Have just mistyped and been dumped out AGAIN - from the 1885 9-18 page of Astur poliopsis, specimens (think it had a single-digit super-number) - would love to be able to finish the remaining lines.
Posted
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jmkwon
I pretty much have to echo Bonnie123's suggestions. I came back to Notes from Nature looking to fulfill my transcribing needs and thought I would once again give the Ornithological wing a shot. The significant lack of user friendly features in this project, however, has completely put me off.
Like other Notes from Nature projects, there needs to be a "Ctrl + M" feature that allows you to quickly input previous entries. Batch numbers should be auto-filled from previous rows. The lack of these features is even more off-putting when the Ornithological project does not clearly state anywhere on the main project page how exactly a volunteer's work is saved (do row contributions matter? are pages "lost" if not fully transcribed?). Furthermore, there is no indication that extra, possibly useful information is desired (regardless of necessity) by the organizers of this project. Even if I find minutiae like data entry / transcribing actually appealing, the combination of all these factors gives me the impression (and I assume any others who ventured into this project) that the scientists who created this project do not care much about it (but actually, how significant is this project?) and that I am wasting my time.
I sincerely believe that if these features were implemented years ago when the project first started, a far larger portion of this project (probably even the project itself) would've been completed months ago and Natural History could have moved on to other projects. This thought frustrates me enough to write this sort of annoying rant. I find it hard to believe that these features are difficult to implement (but if they are, I'll have to apologize for my rudeness). The continued clunkiness of this project discourages initially curious, willing volunteers from making substantial contributions.
tl;dr: The project is too clunky for most people who would be interested in this sort of thing from using it. Usability changes, along with proper advertising of these changes, should see a significant increase in transcription rate.
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CharlotteBio
I note that for the last few days (since Friday (NZ, GMT+12)) time my total of completed projects hasn't updated. I have successfully completed at least 2, and possibly 4 or 6 transcribed ledger pages but my total remains at 118. Can someone please confirm for me as to what the totals refer to - is it lines (in which case 118 or whatever would be very low) or ledger pages or what? And when we are dumped out of a page for whatever reason are the lines completed recorded and what happens to the rest?
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CharlotteBio
I have just been dumped out of Ornithology - the page from 1885, page 44 - being on the penultimate line when my Firefox closed me out unexpectedly.
Does the work on the lines completed (all but the bottom 2) get wiped get saved or is it lost please? As with all the other imcomplete pages I would love to be able to go back and complete them properly!Posted
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CharlotteBio
Just been dumped from another (partly completed) page 😦 Is there any way to get it back so I can complete - was 1886 9-1 1301- whatever - was up to line 1319.
Posted
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CharlotteBio
in response to ochichornye's comment.
I put gender and age after the species name, separated by commas.
Posted
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HelenBennett57
in response to CharlotteBio's comment.
Hi Charlotte, unfortunately I'm pretty sure that all this will do is either cause you to do work that gets stripped out by the algorithm that creates the consensus transcription, or (if enough people do it, which they probably don't as it isn't requested in the transcription instructions as far as I remember) put information in the species name which doesn't belong there, causing a need for future data clean-up.
I really don't think that putting additional different information in fields that are named for a specific purpose is going to work. You're better off asking the science team to consider adding either a 'further data' field like in Calbug or the Crab Shack, or specific 'gender' and 'age' fields.
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CharlotteBio
thanks for that.
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CharlotteBio
OK - seems adding gender and age to the specimen name isn't worth the effort so I will stop. But it would be sensible to record it with two further fields - for gender and age, with the option to leave it blank. Would also be good if these discussion boards would flag if there were updated comments?
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maggiej
I am a new transcriber, only having done 5 pages so far. But I do have a couple of requests which echo suggestions from previous posters.
- The instructions mask the last couple of entries on the page. Add a couple of inches of white space to the bottom of the page, so that we can scroll down. If that's not feasible, perhaps the instruction boxes could be made movable so we could drag them up when needed.
- Move the "New line" button down to the bottom of the page. It's hard on the wrists to keep moving the mouse up and down the page.
- So far, it looks like the year and batch number are the same for a whole page. It would be a timesaver if they were duplicated from the first entry.
Posted
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HelenBennett57
in response to CharlotteBio's comment.
@CharlotteBio I agree; it would be nice to be able to record the information that is there.
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wreness
@CharlotteBio - don't know if you'd want to but sometimes I'd just put the male ♂ or female ♀ symbol in the transcription after the name instead of typing it out. I never knew if it was needed but if I had time I'd add it for the heck of it . They don't show up well against the gray background here but they do on the white menus 😃
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CharlotteBio
in response to maggiej's comment.
MaggieJ - while the year is always the same for a page, I have completed quite a few pages where there are 2 or more batches on the same page. But anything to allow year and batch numbers to be copied lower down would be great. And I most definitely agree with your points 2 & 3.
And finally it would be great if there was regular feedback from those with administrative responsibility to comments, questions, suggestions.
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CharlotteBio
I have been trying to get a new scan to transcribe but nothing happens - I am logged in and when I go to the page no page number appears - the screen just remains grey. Is something exciting going on behind the scenes?
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am.zooni
Hi Charlotte,
See the 'No images are appearing! plus sign in problem' thread for reports about the same problem, that started happening this afternoon.
ann (@am.zooni)
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