Minutes from OpenKey Software meeting—1/16/2003

11:00-12:30    Manning 214

Members present: Sarah Reuning, Jane Greenberg, Evelyn Daniel, Alan Weakley, Steve Seiberling

 

 

  1. Software discussion, input from all parties, including feedback from discussions w/Bryan

a.      Sarah—From a systems end, Bibe is appealing.  Bryan can help us set up a copy of Bibe in our ibiblio space and will be available for questions in the future.  Other packages are not well documented and the team would be hard pressed to find people who could answer questions about the software, if problems arise. Bibe is free and open source. Ibiblio is already using much of the software needed for the backend. Bryan’s team is also constantly improving and updating the software.

b.      Steve & Alan—Bibe has some good features from the botany end; however, the team had reservations about the interface.  It is not very intuitive. Steve demonstrated IntKey, which has more desirable features. Yet, IntKey is built on the Delta database structure, which was dropped as a standard two years ago.

c.      Jane & Evelyn—No one on the UNC team is a software expert and more time is needed to make a decision. UNC will create XML files to give to the UIUC team to be included in Bibe there. So, a key will be made at UIUC regardless of whether UNC makes a separate key. Online keys vs. keys that are downloaded to run on users’ computers— this decision has been postponed, but Bryan’s key will be accessible via the Internet.

 

Action Items

 

 

  1. Present proposed schedule for semester meetings—Sarah. The proposed meeting schedule was distributed.

 

Interactive Visual Polyclave Plant Keys should have the following features:

 

Ø       Select characters/values in any order

Ø       Error tolerance (when user gets something dead wrong, system should not care)

Ø       Approximate matching (matrix has examples)

Ø       Characteristic priority; dynamic reordering

Ø       Differentiating characteristics

Ø       Diagnostic characteristics

 

  1. Time permitting, discuss Evelyn's plans w/ Priscilla or make specific date to discuss this—For now, plans with Priscilla have been postponed