Department of Computer Science

Grant Title

A Wikipedia®-approach to mapping the plants of Pennsylvania

Faculty Involved

Drs. Chris Hardy & Nazli Hardy

Timeframe

April 1, 2007 - May 1, 2008

Funding Agency

PAsshe FPDC

Amount

$$5,999

Abstract

Developing an interdisciplinary (Computer Science and Biology) Wikipedia-like approach to mapping the distributions of the 524 species of woody plants in Pennsylvania. Unlike existing approaches that rely only on scientist-collected data, our Wikipedia approach is novel in that it will completely integrate the scientific and lay communities in the important task of documenting the occurrences of Pennsylvanian plants. Environmental monitoring and conservation efforts relying on large quantities of up-to-date locality data for threatened or invasive species are currently limited by the relatively small community of professional biologists already engaged in such activities. Our Wiki-Plant-Geographer would be a free Web-accessible repository for plant-geographic data that grows indefinitely through the collective efforts of the virtually omnipotent network of botanical enthusiasts (the lay community) and professional biologists going about their daily activities. Given the concern over "data quality" where laypersons are involved, as Wiki-Plant Geographer grows we will investigate (i.e., quantify) the general accuracy of user-contributed data using novel ground-verification projects integrated into the classroom and work-study activities of undergraduates