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Since 2013, the Sussex recording community has
devoted thousands of hours to submitting and verifying records using iRecord.
SxBRC has been
hearing a range of perspectives on iRecord, ranging from: “It’s all good!”
through to, “It’s the most user unfriendly program I’ve ever had the misfortune
to encounter.”
We wanted to capture this whole spectrum of
feedback and use it as a basis for influencing future development of iRecord
and prioritising actions we could take locally, in Sussex, to improve how we
capture, process and share data.
To that end, we've produced this discussion
document on Sussex & iRecord: A County Perspective on Using iRecord (you
can click on the link to download it as a .pdf) and thought I'd share it here,
in case anyone else is interested.
We have identified a range of priorities, from our
County perspective, for future development of iRecord and related systems. These include:
- Addressing performance
issues
- Developing better handling
of rare and sensitive species
- Refining the ‘view’ for
verifiers
- More dialogue needed with
recording schemes about how to manage over-lapping verifier roles
- Working together to explore
options for more auto-verification and better validation
- Improvements to the UK
Species Inventory (UKSI)
- More contextual information
for recorders when entering records
- Consistency in download
format
- Ongoing provision of
training and technical support
We look forward to working with the Biological Record Centre and other members
of the National
Biodiversity Network to address these priorities.
Thank you to all the Sussex recorders and iRecord
verifiers who've provided feedback to inform this document.