Texas A&M Bioinformatics Working Group
a collaborating member of the
Flora of Texas Consortium
Texas Endemics: Annotator RegistrationTexas Endemics: Registration
Collaborative, on-line development of dynamic data sets by specialists positioned at remote sites is a new area of scientific activity. One rationale for work with the 'Texas Endemics' project is exploration of this realm and, via usage, refine approaches to various problems as they are encountered.

Preservation of data integrity requires limited access and this forces a 'registration' node to help insure that those responsible for data input are qualified representatives of a given biodiversity collection. As currently configured, the system allows immediate access for members of the Flora of Texas Consortium and the American Society of Plant Taxonomy. Members of these organizations can email Hugh Wilson or Stephan Hatch a request to register as a data contributor. If the 'return' email address of this message matches the appropriate address on current FTC/ASPT membership listings, a return message will come from our systems administrator requesting the following information:

Your name as it is to appear on your annotations
Your organization identification (usually an IH herbarium acronym)
The 'username' you would like to use at login
The password you want to use for logging into the system

Your reply to this will allow registration and, once this is accomplished, a confirmation message that signals access to the system. Registration implies professional responsibility and all entries in the data stream are linked to institutional and personal identifications. It is assumed that data entered into the system are taken from specimens that have been reviewed by a qualified taxonomist.

System access by a registered user remains in effect during the current browser session, i.e., if the browser is not closed by the registered user, others with access to the local computer will be able to annotate. Thus, for those working with open access computers, full termination of the annotation process will require active termination (close, exit) of the WWW browser software in use.

Home Diversity Map Checklist Browse Annotation