An international transcription blitz set records in Arkansas including an event held at the Division of Arkansas Heritage headquarters, hosted by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission (ANHC). The event was directed by Diana Soteropoulos, then with Arkansas State University and now with the ANHC, in conjunction with a Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections (WeDigBio) event. The transcription blitz trained volunteers to use Notes from Nature, an online citizen-science database platform, to digitize label data from museum and natural history specimens.

The fifth annual WeDigBio transcription blitz took place Thursday, October 17, 2019 through Sunday, October 20,2019. The goal of the blitz was to transcribe as many labels as possible during the four-day period. Local events provided participants opportunities to see herbarium collections, ask questions of curators, and build a sense of community.

For the first time, multiple events occurred throughout Arkansas in conjunction with the international event, and Arkansans showed up, submitting about twice as many transcriptions for the Notes from Nature “Plants of Arkansas” project than have ever been completed during previous year’s events. In total, 4,918 transcriptions submitted through the online platform will provide digital records for 1,640 herbarium specimens (each specimen receives three transcriptions to build a consensus transcript).

The first event, held at the University of Arkansas - Monticello (UAM), had 12 student participants from Dr. Richard Abbott’s general botany lab. Dr. Eric Sundell joined the event to co-host herbarium tours with Abbott. Additionally, Abbott tied a class assignment into the event for students to learn about citizen science and transcribe specimen labels from the UAM Herbarium through one of the active projects on Notes from Nature. During the four-day online event, 25 UAM students completed 1,510 transcriptions. Several students reported how much they enjoyed the class assignment and requested to have another event as an extra credit opportunity.

Arkansas made transcription history on October 18 with the “Plants of Arkansas” project. Transcriptions from the project contributed over a third of all transcriptions completed on Notes from Nature worldwide and set a record for number of transcriptions completed on the project in a single day: 3,197.

Two events hosted in Jonesboro at Arkansas State University (A-State) and in Conway at Hendrix College (HXC) contributed to this success. Fifty-two A-State students and Northeast Arkansas Master Naturalists played transcription games to compete for gifts donated by local organizations in support of the event.

At HXC, Dr. Adam Schneider trained two Central Arkansas Master Naturalists to mount herbarium specimens during the annual WeDigBio transcription event, giving them a break from the computer screen. Even with the break, the three transcribers at HXC contributed 485 transcriptions to the “Plants of Arkansas” project.

The WeDigBio transcription event culminated in Little Rock at the Department of Arkansas Heritage headquarters on Saturday, October 19. Little Rock attendees toured the ANHC offices and herbarium, and watched behind-the-scenes processing of plant specimens, led by chief of research, Theo Witsell, and botanist, Brent Baker. Participants saw the entire process of creating a herbarium specimen, from plant pressing to mounting plant specimens to the imaging station, where herbarium specimen images are captured prior to data transcription from the labels. Seeing the herbarium process provided participants with context for the Notes from Nature project.

With the class assignments, prizes, and herbarium tours, the WeDigBio transcription event gave botanists, students, and other interested individuals an opportunity to connect. In addition to the high number of transcriptions completed during the event, the number of registered volunteers on the “Plants of Arkansas” project in Notes from Nature doubled from 108 unique usernames at the start of the event to 220 unique usernames at the conclusion of the event.
Photos:
Photo 1 and Main Photo — Arkansas State University students and Northeast Arkansas Master Naturalists packed the Life Sciences computer lab during the WeDigBio event.
Photo 2 — Dr. Adam Schenider (HXC) training Angela Corlett, a Central Arkansas Master Naturalist, on how to mount herbarium specimens during the annual WeDigBio transcription event.
Photo 3 — Theo Witsell, chief of research and inventory at ANHC, led a tour of the herbarium and demonstrated how the ANHC processes herbarium specimens.