The Electronic Field Guide (EFG) project: Architecture, features and advances toward scalability

Background/Question/Methods

Field guides are commonly employed to identify species.  Used by both scientists and lay people, guides typically include common and scientific names, descriptions of morphology and behavior, attributes that can be seen in the field, illustrations and/or photographs, and range information. Species identification occurs by comparing observations of species with the material in the guide; people turn to the pictures first. The Electronic Field Guide (EFG) Project was undertaken to develop software that would allow scientists and lay people to make their own digital guides without the restrictions imposed by paper formats and commercial considerations.  The task of authoring guides was broken down into several steps: providing a method to capture content, installing software, importing and configuring content, provide a glossary and providing a variety of display formats.  Here we review the use of the EFG software and suggest extensions for making electronic field guides.

Results/Conclusions

Over thirty guides have been produced using EFG software (see http://efg.cs.umb.edu/efg2/TypePage.jsp) written using open source components (http://sourceforge.net/projects/efg/ ). CSV files composed of a taxon by category matrix are used to organize and store text information. The CSV file contains pointers to a folder that holds multimedia files (illustrations, maps, sounds, etc.). Authors find the CSV- folder model sufficiently flexible for their needs. EFG 2 software runs on Linux and Windows platforms. A drag and drop method to import content is easy to use for initial creation or updating of guides.  Authors rapidly learn the configuration step. Web displays include taxon pages, configurable lists of taxa, and browse and search modes. A utility allows users to make plates in PDF format that can easily be laminated for repeated use in the field.

Extensions of the EFG software illustrate 3^rd generation ideas for constructing guides. The key concept is a “local list” that can be restricted by location or season. This extension illustrates how EFGs can be scaled up to make personalized on-demand guides. Establishing standards to represent the information in guides would provide easier updating and reuse of content when new software tools and operating systems (iOS and Android) become available.