Revision of How to use the Weevil Site from Sat, 2008-10-11 14:06

Introduction

Scratchpads are an easy to use, social networking application that enable communities of researchers to manage, share
and publish taxonomic data online. Sites are hosted at the Natural History
Museum London, and offered free to any scientist that completes an online
registration form. The weevil scratchpad is dedicated in the first place to
weevil systematics and taxonomy, but is by its nature responsive to the way in
which we, the users, chose to develop it.

How to use the weevil site

Instructions on how to use scratchpads can
be found at http://scratchpads.eu/help
These are currently being updated and
may be incomplete, so any questions you have which are not answered there
please e-mail c.lyal@nhm.ac.uk. While
anyone can look at the content and use the links, to add to the content and
make use of the blogs, fora etc you have to be registered as a contributor.

Taxon pages

Information on taxa can be found using the
classifications on the left of your screen.
The Weevil Community Website currently holds two classifications: one
emended from Alonso-Zarazaga & Lyal (1999) which extends to genus level,
and one from Oberprieler et al (2007) which goes only as far as subfamily.
There is further discussion of why these
two classifications have been chosen following the ‘Notes on Classifications' link
at the top left of the screen.

By clicking on a taxon name you can open
the tree 'beneath' that name, and by clicking on the cross (+) next to the name
you can open a page where information, images etc can be added. Each page contains a set of ‘panels', as
follows:

Taxon Information. Includes added text on
Descriptions, Ecology/biology and Economic notes. Any registered contributor can add to these,
and if we find we want additional content types to this panel I can add them.

Web Images. These are images resulting from a simple web
search, and can be opened to a full view and their source found through a
right-click of the mouse.

GBIF Map. This is generated on the fly from data
moderated through GBIF, and reflects only what GBIF can access under the
name. As we include species on the site
the information may become more complete.

Bibliography. Currently with little
content, but this can be added to by registered contributors. This extracts publications relevant to the
taxon from the full bibliogrpoahy being created for the site.

Google Scholar. References generated on the
fly from a search of Google Scholar for the taxon.

Images. Images uploaded to the site by registered
contributors. Currently with no content.

Biodiversity Heritage Library. References generated on the
fly from a search of the BHL for the taxon.

Files. Uploaded files containing relevant material. Currently little content.

NCBI. Links to Genbank for sequence data for the
taxon. The panel also includes some
external links to name servers.

Current Resources

On the left-hand column this provides links
to key web sites of interest to weevil taxonomists. Registered contributors are invited to add to
these. There is also a link to the forum discussions. We have created a number of potential subjects, but more can be added.


Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith