Electronic Field Guides: Building Partnerships and Informatics Tools for Species Identification and Biodiversity Monitoring

波士顿马萨诸塞大学已获得拨款，将继续并大大扩展电子野外指南(EFG)项目，以便在野外、实验室或通过互联网鉴定物种。这项研究特别强调如何让数字图像在识别过程中更有用，方法是让专家可以轻松地对数字图像进行注释，并让这些注释与图像的副本一起在网络上传播。拟议的工作包括对JPEG2000生物多样性研究规范的重大扩展，以及开发和集成先进的创作和图像注释工具。EFG将得到增强，允许在包括手持设备在内的各种平台上更广泛地使用。通过采用描述性数据的新兴社区标准，波士顿公立学校的教师和学生的广泛参与，以及数百名在哥斯达黎加蒙特维德云林保护区进行研究的美国大学生的使用，将促进广泛使用。这项研究编制的实地指南还将支持专业科学家和消息灵通的非专业观察员的观察，从而帮助研究人员收集有关物种发生的数据，其范围可能比其他情况下更大。

Abstract 0416835The University of Massachusetts Boston has been awarded a grant to continue and greatly expand the Electronic Field Guide (EFG) project for identification of species in the field, in the laboratory, or via the Internet. The research places special emphasis on ways to make digital images more useful in the identification process by making it easy for experts to annotate them and have those annotations travel with copies of the images around the Web. The proposed work includes significant extensions to the JPEG2000 specification for biodiversity studies as well as development and integration of advanced authoring and image annotation tools. The EFG will be enhanced to allow broader use on a variety of platforms, including handhelds. Broad use will be facilitated by the adoption of emerging community standards for descriptive data and by the extensive involvement of teachers and students in the Boston Public Schools and use by hundreds of US college students doing research at Monte Verde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica. Field Guides produced by the research will also support observations by professional scientists and informed lay observers, thereby helping researchers gather data about the occurrence of species on a wider scale than might otherwise be possible.