Insect@thon Results

[Peter Rauch]

Joris,
I'll try again, hopefully more clearly, to ask exactly
what the kids had to work with...

I'm just trying to understand the actual physical materials the
students were working with so I can make better sense of the
productivity (12.5 hours x 92 children (in teams), with 31
computers, recorded 20,897 collection records about 97,696
specimens) you reported.

See specific questions below...

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Joris Komen wrote:
> >> 20, 897 insect inventory records
> >> ... representing 97, 696 specimens in the
> >> National Museum's insect collection.

There were 31 computers, so were the 92 children working in
teams, or were just 30 students at a time working with the data
and computers? If in teams, how did they divide up the tasks
involved in acquiring the data?

> catalogue number 22699 representing specimens 1 - 64, numbered 22699.1 to
> 22699.64 all of the same species collected at one unique locality with a
> known longitude and latitude (see our searcheable webtop locality
> gazetteer:-)) by one distinctive collector sometime between 1937 and
> 1989:-), with specific day, month and year information!:-).

Is each of the specimens labelled with a label containing a
unique catalog.specimen number, e.g., there is a specimen with
the label 22699.1 on the pin, as well as having a paper catalog
record for a group of uniquely-enumerated specimens, e.g., one
catalog card for all 64 specimens, 22699.1-64 ?

> We have catalogues dating back to the start of the collection ...

Were the children entering data from (paper) catalog records then
(i.e., not directly from specimen labels)?

> Our immediate post-event validation process picked up 3,232
> invalid records

What was the validation process? E.g., a sampling of specimens or
catalog cards compared to the newly input computer records?

BTW, I wasn't expressing any "misgivings" about your project.
Again, I'm just trying to understand better what the project
actually involved. I wasn't able to view the event by webcam.

Thanks in advance for any further details.
Peter