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Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience

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...

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Autores principales: Powell, Caleb, Krakowiak, Alaina, Fuller, Rachel, Rylander, Erica, Gillespie, Emily, Krosnick, Shawn, Ruhfel, Brad, Morris, Ashley B., Shaw, Joey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8085955/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33968496
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11415
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author Powell, Caleb
Krakowiak, Alaina
Fuller, Rachel
Rylander, Erica
Gillespie, Emily
Krosnick, Shawn
Ruhfel, Brad
Morris, Ashley B.
Shaw, Joey
author_facet Powell, Caleb
Krakowiak, Alaina
Fuller, Rachel
Rylander, Erica
Gillespie, Emily
Krosnick, Shawn
Ruhfel, Brad
Morris, Ashley B.
Shaw, Joey
author_sort Powell, Caleb
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-80859552021-05-07 Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience Powell, Caleb Krakowiak, Alaina Fuller, Rachel Rylander, Erica Gillespie, Emily Krosnick, Shawn Ruhfel, Brad Morris, Ashley B. Shaw, Joey Appl Plant Sci Protocol Note 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. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021-04-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8085955/ /pubmed/33968496 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11415 Text en © 2021 Powell et al. Applications in Plant Sciences is published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of the Botanical Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Protocol Note
Powell, Caleb
Krakowiak, Alaina
Fuller, Rachel
Rylander, Erica
Gillespie, Emily
Krosnick, Shawn
Ruhfel, Brad
Morris, Ashley B.
Shaw, Joey
Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience
title Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience
title_full Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience
title_fullStr Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience
title_full_unstemmed Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience
title_short Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: Accounting for human experience
title_sort estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates: accounting for human experience
topic Protocol Note
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8085955/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33968496
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11415
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