Arctos: Searching for Agents Outside Your Collection

[alexkrohn]

Often when I'm adding (particularly legacy) specimens to Arctos one-by-one in data entry, I want to check if an unknown agent is already in Arctos. So, I open a new tab and do an agent search for that agent. Often, I find a potentially good match (e.g. Myrnal L. Hawes is probably the real collector for a small mammal in British Columbia given to UCSC from the MVZ with the collector as "M. Hawes"). However, when I try to confirm my suspicious by searching the MVZ collections for any specimens by Myrnal L. Hawes collected at the MVZ (here), I get no results. This is because I'm signed into my account from UCSC.

In order to both search other institutions' collections/agents, and enter my own data, I need to open Arctos in an incognito window. When I do this, I confirm that Myrnal L. Hawes indeed collected shrews in British Columbia at the MVZ at the same time. Our M. Hawes is very likely Myrnal L. Hawes.

That process of switching to incognito mode seems a bit silly and cumbersome for what, at least at UCSC, is a frequent task. Is there a way to disable this restriction on searches when you're logged in? Or could this be a new feature to add? Perhaps, when you begin to search outside of your collection, there could be a warning at the top that says "These results may include agents from outside your collection."

Thanks for your help.

[dustymc]

This is a feature request.

Read-only access to various VPD slices are (mostly, I think) technically plausible. This would require rethinking the VPD model and addressing any social concerns (eg, how encumbered data interact with 'operator, but not for this collection' users).

Alternatively or additionally, the agent summary page could perhaps contain more data - a taxa+geography+year summary or similar. That would also need to consider encumbrances.

See also http://handbook.arctosdb.org/documentation/agent.html#creating--maintaining-agents and http://handbook.arctosdb.org/documentation/agent.html#deletingmerging-agents specifically

Do not orphan unused names; flag them as “bad duplicate of” the good name so that they will be reviewed and deleted. (Use “unknown” as the good name if there is no acceptable alternative.)

I went ahead and created that relationship.

[alexkrohn]

Thanks, Dusty. For that particular example we were going to go back and
merge the M. Hawes with Myrnal L. Hawes, but hadn't gone back to do it yet.
I usually check the students' work to catch these kinds of duplicates, but
missed that one.

It would be great to have more information in the summary page about the
agent, such as years active, or top 5 commonest lowest higher geography
(e.g. provinces/states/counties). Regardless, I often want to see the
specific collections that the person made just to be sure.

I know we at UCSC would greatly appreciate this feature.

On Fri, Apr 3, 2020 at 11:11 AM dustymc [e-mail] wrote:

This is a feature request.

Read-only access to various VPD slices are (mostly, I think) technically
plausible. This would require rethinking the VPD model and addressing any
social concerns (eg, how encumbered data interact with 'operator, but not
for this collection' users).

Alternatively or additionally, the agent summary page could perhaps
contain more data - a taxa+geography+year summary or similar. That would
also need to consider encumbrances.

See also
http://handbook.arctosdb.org/documentation/agent.html#creating--maintaining-agents
and
http://handbook.arctosdb.org/documentation/agent.html#deletingmerging-agents
specifically

Do not orphan unused names; flag them as “bad duplicate of” the good name
so that they will be reviewed and deleted. (Use “unknown” as the good name
if there is no acceptable alternative.)

I went ahead and created that relationship.

—
You are receiving this because you authored the thread.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
https://github.com/ArctosDB/arctos/issues/2577#issuecomment-608586219,
or unsubscribe
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADAEIHDAEDXRNXMTZB3WK3DRKYRFVANCNFSM4L4KXO4A
.

--
Alex Krohn
Assistant Director
Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History
Office: 239 Nat Sci II
he/him/his

Mailstop: ENVS
University of California, Santa Cruz
1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064

Norris Center for Natural History https://norriscenter.ucsc.edu/

[Jegelewicz]

VPD enhancement needs funding.