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Transcribe 8% of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh handwritten Living Collection archives to train Machine Learning algorithms and unlock the secrets of longevity
Learn moreThere's two options
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Cards can be read whole & all required data transcribed (Whole Card workflow & Location, Planted, Dead workflow).
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Individually segmented data boxes can be transcribed (All other workflows).
These are different workflows designed to appeal to different types of transcriber - the whole record version will appeal to the "completist" who will prefer to transcribe the whole card, one card at a time - while the "speedster" with a liking for quick data entry will prefer the atomised cards with blanks and recurring data.
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Message from the researcher
For the last 52 years, we have not been able to easily link the current collection to the historical records. Robert Cubey, Plant Records Officer - RBGE
RobCubeyAbout Transcribe the Living Collection
In 1969 the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh started to digitise the plant record and every living plant was given a digital record in our Collection Management System. Now with the benefit of high-speed digitisation and improved artificial intelligence (AI) natural language software we wish to digitise & database the historical catalogue from the card files.
We have scanned the accession cards and now we are ready to use OCR and AI techniques to “read” the cards. The regular format of the cards really helps with this, but we need a training dataset - and this is where this citizen science project steps in as we need approx. three thousand cards transcribed to train the “reading” software.