Herbarium Digitization Course
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Course Information
Course Description
In this course, you will learn about the scientific use of herbarium specimens—dried, press plants stored in herbaria—and you will directly contribute to the “digitization” of these specimens. This will involve transcribing data from images of herbarium specimen labels and conducting other digitization tasks using our online database, CCH2 (cch2.org).
Course Expectations
Requirements
You will need a computer with internet connection, a microphone, and Zoom installed for participation in remote work sessions.
Attendance
You will be expected to attend the synchronous Zoom co-working time every week. During this time, we will discuss relevant materials, and we will work together on herbarium digitization tasks primarily in our online database, CCH2. You will be expected to ask questions, receive feedback and correct your work accordingly, and engage with the instructors and your peers in a respectful manner.
In case of an emergency that will not allow you to attend a class time, please email Katie as soon as possible. Make-up work may be assigned.
Assignments
In addition to attendance, you will be expected to watch a handful of training videos outside of class, give a 5-minute presentation about a scientific paper or topic of general interest to the class (e.g., history of a particular specimen, collector, or location), and complete a course assessment at the end of the term. Additional small assignments may be issued if further training is required.
In this course, you will learn about the scientific use of herbarium specimens—dried, press plants stored in herbaria—and you will directly contribute to the “digitization” of these specimens. This will involve transcribing data from images of herbarium specimen labels and conducting other digitization tasks using our online database, CCH2 (cch2.org).
Course Expectations
Requirements
You will need a computer with internet connection, a microphone, and Zoom installed for participation in remote work sessions.
Attendance
You will be expected to attend the synchronous Zoom co-working time every week. During this time, we will discuss relevant materials, and we will work together on herbarium digitization tasks primarily in our online database, CCH2. You will be expected to ask questions, receive feedback and correct your work accordingly, and engage with the instructors and your peers in a respectful manner.
In case of an emergency that will not allow you to attend a class time, please email Katie as soon as possible. Make-up work may be assigned.
Assignments
In addition to attendance, you will be expected to watch a handful of training videos outside of class, give a 5-minute presentation about a scientific paper or topic of general interest to the class (e.g., history of a particular specimen, collector, or location), and complete a course assessment at the end of the term. Additional small assignments may be issued if further training is required.
Specimen Highlights
Archive
In this course, we focused on transcribing herbarium specimen labels using Notes From Nature and then directly in the data portal, CCH2. For two weeks, as also worked on converting verbatim coordinate, such as township-range-section coordinates, into decimal degrees, thereby "georeferencing" specimens. Our accomplishments for Winter 2021 are summarized in the graphic above.
*Note that Notes from Nature (NfN) transcriptions reflect all transcriptions completed on the site that day, and therefore might include transcriptions that were not from our class.
