Projects - oss-wec/wisdm GitHub Wiki

This feature doesn't have any analogous feature in the current database.

Why Projects

The database was first developed with bighorn sheep in mind. Animals were grouped into mountain ranges. This began to become a problem when we tried to fit elk, deer, and all other species into the database. I came up with a few ways to shoehorn all the other species into a half reasonable location method. However, it has never really worked.

Projects are my new solution to logically grouping animals. Each animal will belong to a project.

Projects and Stages

A project is a top level organizational unit. Each project needs a name, description, start date, duration, project leads, and species. All of these are required.

After entering a project a user can either enter animals to associate with that project, or a project stage. Stages are very similar to projects. The main differences are that a stage must have a parent project, and instead of project leads, the user enters project collaborators. A stage is also associated with certain hunt units.

Flexible

I am attempting to make projects and stages as flexible as possible. For instance, a project can have stages if the project leads choose, or animals can be associated directly with the project. Project stages can be annual capture events, localized capture events, or multi year capture efforts. These decisions are left to the project leads.

Examples

Disease Monitoring (DMV)

The project leads for this can choose to create a project called DMV, then every capture that happens for this project is a stage. Or, the project can be Muddy Mountains DMV, and every year can be a stage. Or, DMV 2017 can be the project and every different capture event can be a stage.

Bald Mtn

The project for this can be Bald Mtn, then a stage 1 can be all the captures that occurred pre-mine expansion. Stage 2 can be all the captures that occurred during mine expansion. Stage 3 can be all the captures that occur after mine expansion.

Regardless of how the project/stages are set up there will be utilities to further filter/select animals. I understand that this is a big change from how we currently think about grouping animals and manage data, however, I think it is a worthwhile change.