Hi Lindsay,
Despite not being able to answer my own query i may be able to help you with yours..
See below for my rambling but for official information the GitHub project is the first point of call: https://github.com/Indicia-Team
Followed by the 'docs' which have improved but can still be a bit of a challenge to follow: https://indicia-docs.readthedocs.io/en/ … ation.html
The group in question has created an activity and organisation in iRecord and was wanting to create a bespoke recording form. I believe, and I think this is backed up by what Ben said in his post, that there isn't a way to create bespoke forms within iRecord so to speak. --- Indeed my understanding is still that you have very limited ability to tailor recording forms. You *can* however select from a small selection of pre-made forms from some of the schemes so it's perhaps worth checking first to see if any of them fit the bill. What you can't do currently is define your own attributes/recording fields.
To do this would I be right to say that they'd need to use Indicia? --- In principle yes, Indicia is incredibly flexible. You can define your own fields to record against (or select from an extensive list of pre-defined options from other projects) and then define your own selection lists. In addition to a whole host of other customisation controls and options.
Would they then be able to use this within iRecord or would they need their own environment / warehouse, etc.? --- You have two components to any Indicia based recording website; the warehouse - a PostgreSQL database which holds the data and where it is administrated (Indicia) and the website itself where the user interacts with the data (e.g. iRecord).
You might (see below) be able to use the BRC warehouse but you would also need a recording website which you would need to host somewhere or add to an existing website. If you have a Drupal website then you would install the Indica module which would add the capability to interact with the warehouse (add or query data).
To use the BRC warehouse they would need to set up your recording project and give you a project login. They have hosted national schemes and LERCs as well as more targeted recording projects but i don't know what their actual criteria are when it comes to smaller groups and projects.
A hosted project can have 'agreements' around data flow for verification and feeding into iRecord. If you look at the 'All Explore' iRecord page and click on a number in the 'src' column you should be able to see that many of the records have come outside of iRecord itself. As a LERC you should also be able to see the range of schemes and projects hosted on the warehouse as they appear as download options.
So you couldn't add records using the iRecord interface for your own project but you could view them there and allow them to be included in verification and data flow.
The alternative, to host your own warehouse is also a possibility. However, it is no small commitment to get it set up (i've been doing this myself recently) then there is the issue of web hosting. I haven't yet found a cost-viable PostgreSQL (the warehouse) host for a small project/pet project.
If you set up your own warehouse then it wouldn't be automatically linked to iRecord. In the past BRC staff have mentioned that this should be possible to automate to some extent as the systems would be very similar. But i don't know if it has ever be done and would no doubt require some development commitment.
Natural History & Biodiversity Data Enthusiast
