1 Reply by Lynn Heeley

  • Lynn Heeley
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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Dear All,

Within the designation reporting in Recorder you can choose to use short names and long names etc, these are however very long (particularly when concatenating the information). The abbreviation option would be extremely useful but is currently not populated in the database and therefore cnnnot be used in reporting.

Following several recent requests I have created a spreadsheet with a first draft of proposed abbreviations.
Following further discussion with colleagues I have updated this since posting the original post - here is the latest verison (V3): http://forums.nbn.org.uk/uploads.php?file=Abbreviations%20-%20SpeciesDesignationsV3.xls - the proposed abbreviations are in yellow column.

This is your chance to contribute to the deisgnation reporting to make it work better for you - what do you think - can you understand them?  Hav eyou any other more logical suggestions for any of the designations? All comments welcome.

Many thanks,
Lynn

2 Reply by RobLarge

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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

This is not exactly my area of work at the moment, but I do have an opinion. I agree that the currently exported and concatenated names are too long, but to my mind they are also too detailed for most uses.

I realise that there are differences in the nature and scope of the various legislations, but I suspect that for many of our clients (and especially the planners) all that is really necessary is to know that a species is protected in UK or International law. If there is an issue where they need more information about the nature of the protection, they have the resources to identify it or they can always ask us for more detail.

So long as care is taken to make the abbreviations distinguishable one from another, I would like them to be as short as possible. For example, for the RDBs I would be happy with e.g. VU or CR. There is certainly no need to distinguish pre and post 94 statuses, we live in a post 94 world and for most users the earlier status is of little interest.

Rob Large
Wildlife Sites Officer
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre

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3 Reply by charliebarnes

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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

What about having SHORT_ABBREVIATION (as Rob suggests, e.g. "RDB", "WCA") and LONG_ABBREVIATION?

I can imagine situations using both long and short names and long and short abbreviations.

Charlie Barnes
Information Officer
Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership

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4 Reply by AndyFoy

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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Hi,

It doesn't matter to me if there are one or two versions of short and shorter abbreviations, but I would also like to see much shorter abbreviations somewhere.  Below are the ones that we currently use at HBIC - they can be rather cryptic, but when space is at a premium they are better than using footnote numbering or letters.

Cheers,
Andy

EU_Bird_1 Annex I of the Birds Directive)
EU_Bird_21 Annex II/1 of the Birds Directive)
EU_Bird_22 Annex II/2 of the Birds Directive)
EU_Hab_2 Annex II of the Habitats Directive (priority species)
EU_Hab_2np Annex II of the Habitats Directive (non-priority species)
EU_Hab_4 Annex IV of the Habitats Directive
EU_Hab_5 Annex V of the Habitats Directive
IUCN_(pre 94)
IUCN_(1994)
IUCN_(2001)
RSPB_Red Birds of Conservation Concern Red list
RSPB_Amber Birds of Conservation Concern Amber list
NR Nationally rare (occurring in 15 or fewer 10km squares in Great Britain)
NS Nationally scarce (occurring in 16 - 100 10km squares in Great Britain)
NN Nationally notable (occurring in 16 - 100 10km squares in Great Britain or less than 20 Vice Counties)
UKBAP UK Biodiversity Action Plan priority species
HBAP Hampshire Biodiversity Action Plan species
WCA_s1p1 Schedule 1 Part 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended)
WCA_s5s91(k) Schedule 5 Section 9 Part 1 (killing/injuring) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended)
WCA_s5s91(t) Schedule 5 Section 9 Part 1 (taking) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended)
WCA_s5s94a Schedule 5 Section 9 Part 4a of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended)
WCA_s5s94b Schedule 5 Section 9 Part 4b of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended)
WCA_s8 Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended)
PBA Protection of Badgers Act 1992
EPS European Protected Species
NERC_s41 Section 74 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000

Andy Foy
Systems Manager
Greenspace Information for Greater London (GiGL) CIC
www.gigl.org.uk

5 Reply by Lynn Heeley

  • Lynn Heeley
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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your comments - your abbreviations are a similar length to the ones I'm proposing - I'm not really sure how you would make them any shorter without becoming very difficult to understand. I guess many people will have made up their own abbreviations prior to this initiative - the question is can people work with the ones I'm proposing?

I've included RDB Birds in error on the spreadsheet - I understand that these designations have been superceded and therefore these won't get an abbreviation in the final version.

Keep the comments coming.
Thanks,
Lynn

6 Reply by DGERC

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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Thanks for this Lynn

To my eyes the exact values of the abbreviations are not that important.  I think that most times these will be used in conjunction with a key to their full meaning, particularly if using them in outputs for clients etc.  I think that making them vaguely recognisable for the designation is helpful (as you have done) and as short as possible is a good idea. 

I also think that each abbreviation should be discreet (i.e. no duplication) to avoid any risk of confusion. 

Mark
DGERC

Mark Pollitt
SWSEIC (formerly DGERC)

DGERC's Website

7 Reply by Simon Wood

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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Hi Lynn

Had a look through the list of abbreviations and they look good, we have a couple of suggestions to add:

1. Agree with Rob that we live in a post 94 world and so reference to any pre or post RDB dates seems irrelevant and makes the staus abbrv longer
2. Also on RDB does the "GB" need including? Could it be assumed they are all "GB" with the "RDBIntImp" being used as the exception
3. Exact values for abbrvns - think exact values would be useful (eg Andy Foys post) but maybe could have the Schedule but miss out the Section as a comprimise to length vs usefulness?
4. In all these cases a Key would certainly be required (but not necessarily displayed through Recorder, perhaps a Word doc for the addition of local designations) and to have this standardised amongst LRCs would certainly be useful and welcomed

Thanks very much for getting this started

Simon

Worc BRC

Simon Wood's Website

8 Reply by DGERC

  • DGERC
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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

RobLarge wrote:

... but I suspect that for many of our clients (and especially the planners) all that is really necessary is to know that a species is protected in UK or International law.

I think the Taxon Kind or the Taxon Designation (which resolves to a simple Yes) used against a relevant Taxon Designation Set could produce exactly this.

Lynn - on the issue of Taxon Kinds, shouldn't 'WACA:Sch5Sect9.4c' (NBNSYS0100000017) and 'WACA:Sch5Sect9.4A*' (NBNSYS0100000018) have Taxon Kinds of 'WCAct' rather than 'Nat Legislation'?

Mark
DGERC

Mark Pollitt
SWSEIC (formerly DGERC)

DGERC's Website

9 Reply by Lynn Heeley

  • Lynn Heeley
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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Hi Mark,

The Kind that you refer to in the taxon_designation_type table in Recorder is actually not in sync with the species dictionary proper (and when we add the status abbreviations it will be automatically be synchronised). The Kind field is supposed to have five different types only, these are: International, Nat Legislation, Other rare/scarce, Red Data List, UKBAP. As rows are added or the changed date field is set on existing rows these are then included in the species dictionary in Recorder (as the extractor uses the changed by date to recognise new data for the updates). This is why the new rows that have been added (the ones you mention plus NERC etc) have the new version of the kind field rather than the old field.

Does anyone use this kind field as it is in reporting?
When it changes to the top level five categories is this going to cause problems?

Thanks for flagging this up Mark.
Best Wishes,
Lynn

10 Reply by Lynn Heeley

  • Lynn Heeley
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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Hi Simon/Mark,

After consultation with experts here at JNCC we dropped the pre and post dates for the red lists (sorry I should have sent you an updated version). V3 of the spreadsheet at the top of this post outlines the latest version. The Red List items are dfferentiated by GLB and GB but the pre 94 are RDB and the post 94/2001 are RL. This means that post 94 and post 2001 categories are the same - is that not discreet enough Mark or can these be amalgamated?

We could drop the GB but keep the GLB to shorten the GB ones further as well?
Simon I don't quite follow your point number 3 can you clarify please.

You can generate a key for use externally using a simple query on the taxon_designation_type table in nbndata.mdb once this is implemented.

best wishes,
Lynn

11 Reply by DGERC

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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Thanks for the updates Lynn. I'm happy to go with the suggested abbreviations. As was mentioned previously the pre94/post94 split is of least significance.

A minor note with regard to idea of generating a key from the table using a simple query.  I did just that and that's how I noticed that some of the descriptions appear to have been truncated.  Another niggle is that some of the descriptions include html codes (e.g. the Berne Convention ones) and it was a pain to go through and strip out the formatting.  If the formatting in this field is used in R6 to help display somewhere then that's fine, otherwise if its redundant then it would be better as a clean text field to save people the hassle of stripping out the code.

Mark Pollitt
SWSEIC (formerly DGERC)

DGERC's Website

12 Reply by Lynn Heeley

  • Lynn Heeley
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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

I'll look into this. I guess the fields will be the same type and size as those in the main species dictionary otherwise the extraction won't work. We now maintained these tables at JNCC so should be able to iron these issues out hopefully.

Cheers,
Lynn

13 Reply by Simon Wood

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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Hi Lynn

Just to clarify what I meant on point 3: Rather than going down to specific section just have the Schedule? eg WCA5 rather than WCA_s5s91(t) etc as a comprimise to length vs usefulness

But I'm not too sure I agree with myself now!

Do you have an estimation of when the abbreviations(once decided!) might ready to use and be rolled out to R6?

Simon

Simon Wood's Website

14 Reply by Lynn Heeley

  • Lynn Heeley
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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Now that most people that are interested have had time to comment I wil start making the changes immediately. This will be implemented as a dictionary update so will be available within the next couple of weeks - I will post an announcement when it is ready to download from the website.

Thanks you all for your contributions. Hopefully this will make designation reporting even easier.
Best wishes,
Lynn

15 Reply by Lindsay_FifeNature

  • Lindsay_FifeNature
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Re: proposed status abbrev for designation reporting - feedback required

Hopping on a very old post here, but does anyone know of a report in Recorder that brings out a list of all the current abbreviations against description, etc?  I thought I'd found and used one before, but as I can't find one now I'm wondering if I was thinking of the 'View designation details' report under System Supplied > Information in the menu, which doesn't include the abbreviations.

Thanks!
Linds

Lindsay Bamforth
Fife Nature Records Centre,
Information Officer

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