Please share:

http://www.herpmapper.org/content/pdf/herpmapper-announcement.pdf

Printed some out and will start putting a couple up on the student bulletin at Calhoun next month.

Sorry if i missed out on a discussion of this before, but how does HerpMapper differ from H.E.R.P. other than being global?

There are pros and cons to each project. If you want to maintain ownership of data, and vote on each data release, HERP is the better choice. However, if you are willing to give real-time access to conservation organizations, HerpMapper may be a better option (this way you can focus on data collection and not reviewing proposals, voting, etc.). Because HerpMapper has the ability to manage and release data entered by contributors, data permanence better protected.

Currently, you can easily transfer HERP data into HerpMapper. In the future, HerpMapper data will also be transferable to HERP (HERP needs to develop a system for this).

Just my 2cents (for the record - I still use HERP for a few records that I do want to maintain control over).

-Chris

Thank you for the explanation, Chris!

Happy to help.

-Chris

Another difference is that NAHERP has far more records and more ongoing relationships that Herpmapper does. (Just me deleting my records would reduce Herpmapper's database by 10%, and its been almost a year since I put those records there.) If its greater control over data is appealing to enough people, NAHERP will continue to maintain that large edge in data and will therefore be the place that more agencies go to get data.

NAHERP also gives the opportunity to include much more information than Herpmapper. From what I understand of what our partner agencies want, though, I don't think that's a significant difference.

I hope both do well, especially since NAHERP is not international.

As Chris implied, I think that for now the easiest way to cover your bases is to upload everything into NAHERP, then transfer it all over into Herpmapper.

To be fair how long as HerpMapper been fully functional? Not a year to be sure. How long has NAHERP been around? How much of it's records are from 10 people or so? Give it some time, since it's international it will catch on, and will likely supersede the HERP database, since the politics won't come in to play, and the audience is much larger.

* Oh, I'm not faulting Herpmapper for having fewer records than NAHERP. Of course its youth is part of the reason. But that recent start matters. It's just a fact that some people would prefer to contribute more to an already-established entity than a start-up. If we want to look at it a different way, how many fewer records would Herpmapper have right now if NAHERP hadn't already paved the way for it and people weren't able to copy their records over? Again, that's not a knock against either one - the 2nd-generation product might surpass the 1st-generation model. But I'd say that we're still at the stage where we're waiting to see whether Herpmapper has the degree of usefulness and staying power that NAHERP has already proven. NAHERP added over 24,000 records in the first six months of this year and is currently voting on its 57th data request, so it's doing very, very well right now.

* It's silly to suggest that NAHERPs records are all from 10 people. Take out the 10 biggest data contributors, and NAHERP still has 140,000 records. Though I'm not sure why they shouldn't count? There are close to 50 people who have entered at least 1,000 records into NAHERP, and well over 200 people who have entered over 100 records. And NAHERP just passed 2,500 people who have at least signed up with the database. So the core group of submitters is quite healthy.

* As far as politics goes, I'm not sure what negative politics are involved with NAHERP. I'm not part of the HERP governing board, so I haven't seen any such politics. I've been contributing since 2007, though, and have certainly never had politics affect my data. On the other side, as far as I know, Herpmapper is just run by Don and he has ultimate say on everything, which of course has its positives and negatives.

* As far as the benefits of an international audience, I really hope that's the case. My data is almost all coming from overseas now, and I have a ton of stuff from Guatemala, Belize, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh that I would love to be useful to someone someday. I'm involved in promoting citizen science in Asia (did a talk and wrote an article about it for a student environmental group in Bangladesh). Citizen science is barely utilized here, and if it does take off, it's yet to be seen whether Herpmapper will be a player or whether others, like iNaturalist or national groups like the Bhutan Biodiversity Portal, will be the main outlets.

* Unfortunately, Herpmapper has been able to get very little international data so far. Outside of North America, the biggest input seems to be 70 records from Costa Rica, 48 from Panama, and 44 from Australia. Hardly anywhere else even has 20. That's not a level where we can expect anything useful for any particular project. NAHERP is about to reach 2,000 records for Oregon (my home state), and I think that is only barely getting to the point where a data request for Oregon is likely to be helpful. When we're talking whole countries, we're going to want thousands or tens of thousands of data points in a country before any scientist would bother even taking a look at our data.

Like I said, I put all my data in NAHERP and then made sure it was also copied over to Herpmapper, both because I wanted to help spur Herpmapper's growth and because I want my data to be as useful as possible by whoever can use it. And I hope that both do well. I don't want to play them off against each other - contribute to both projects! But if we're doing an either/or, I'd want to make sure people understand that Herpmapper isn't being used yet at the rate that NAHERP is being used, either by data enterers or data requesters, and I don't think it's a sure thing that Herpmapper is going to succeed on the international thing in the long run. A discussion on what else we could do to help make that happen would be great.

HerpMapper is not just run by Don - FYI. There is a committee currently comprised of seven people that shape the organization, and more committee members are welcome.

Also just as an FYI, HerpMapper has given real-time access to several state agencies and NGOs working both domestically and abroad. We recognize that the bulk of HerpMapper data is for the US, and welcome partnerships and insight from those experienced working overseas (such as yourself) to help change this.

Happy Herpin'

-Chris

Cool - I knew nothing about the committee. How is committee membership decided? Is it informal for now or are you setting it up as an NGO or some other organization?

If I could make a recommendation, I think that the following information would be important to have either on herpmapper.org or an associated website:

* An explanation of the governing body of Herpmapper and the decision-making process
* A list of Herpmapper's partners and ongoing projects


I'd love to help more with my own international entries. Besides copying over my NAHERP data, I've also stuck in 1 entry for each country I have data for just to check for bugs related to the different national political divisions. I did notice that the scientific names used for international stuff were really old, and bought this up with Don. Hopefully something will get worked out there soon.

I want to upload a ton more of my international data, but I'm bandwidth-limited, so I'm waiting for the right time to do it. I'd rather use Herpmapper (gotta support the Herp projects, always), but I'll upload the data to iNaturalist instead if I think it's more likely to do good there. Either way, it's a mute point until I get a few days vacation at a place with better internet access.

Suggests well taken. Shoot me a message at: [email protected]. I would like to discuss collaboration in more detail.

Thanks,
Chris

Just a heads up Don-While I was registering for volunteer work at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge thursday, the Ranger registering me asked for a Herpmapper flyer. I gave her one. Also told her of HERP.