Sharing resources using IdentifyLife

IdentifyLife provides a means for builders of interactive identification keys to share character lists and other key identification resources for particular groups of organisms.

When building an interactive key (using, for example, the Lucid or DELTA Builders), an important first task is to create a list of characters and states that will be used to describe and identify the set of organisms in your key.

Suppose that you are planning to build a key to a group of organisms (plants, beetles, fish etc) in your country or region. It may be that other people have created similar keys to the same (or a similar) group of organisms in another country or region.

You may, of course, create your own character list independently of previous workers. However, there are two problems with this approach.

Firstly, you may be able to save a great deal of work by using (perhaps with modifications) the character list created by previous authors.

Secondly, if you create your key independently, it's likely that you will use slightly different characters and states from other authors. This will make it difficult later to combine the keys, or to check the data in one key against that in another.

IdentifyLife provides two solutions to these problems.

The first is for key authors to use IdentifyLife's LifeExchange. If authors of keys contribute a copy of their key to IdentifyLife, other authors planning to build a key to the same or a similar group of organisms can search for and download the key's character list from IdentifyLife, to use as a basis for their key.

The second solution in IdentifyLife is to use a Standard List. A Standard List is a standardised character list created and maintained by a community of experts on a particular group of organisms. A Standard List, if available for your group, will serve as an excellent basis for the character list for your key.

Both Standard Lists and other author's keys can be accessed through IdentifyLife's LifeBrowser. Click through the LifeBrowser tree to find your group, and use the menu to view other keys and Standard Lists for your group. You can view and shop for characters, and download the chosen items in SDD format.