Re: R6 v6.18 candidates for inclusion
The consortium (Mike Weideli, John van Breda and Sally Rankin) that JNCC have outsourced the support and maintenance of Recorder 6 to have reconsidered the plans for future releases of the system and have decided to release another version – v6.18 – before we release the version that will use the new taxon dictionary, subject to the approval of the Recorder Steering Group. Delays in the delivery of the new dictionary mean that it will be some time before we can deliver the version of Recorder 6 that will use it and we want to deliver some improvements before then.
I have compiled a list of changes and fixes to be considered for inclusion in v6.18 and we would like users’ views on prioritising them – see R6v618 candidates for inclusion.xls. The list is rather long and the funding from JNCC will only pay for a limited number of changes so we need to ensure that it is used for the maximum benefit. We are, however, open to users paying for changes they require and you will see that two changes are being funded by Hampshire BIC. Could you please tell us, say, your top five priorities and whether there are any changes or fixes you would be willing to fund in part or in full. The priorities in the Excel file are, more or less, my personal view. They need revision in view of users’ requirements and affordability.
Many ideas have been put forward for improving the import wizard, particularly to improve the import of MapMate data. The Mantis documentation doesn’t fit easily in the Excel file so it has been stored in Selected Mantis Issues 120229.doc along with a few other proposals. We would welcome users’ views on these as well. Mantis is the system we use for logging bugs and suggestions for changes.
The files are in R6v618 candidates for inclusion.zip which is available for download from http://forums.nbn.org.uk/uploads.php .
Thank you to everyone who responded to our request for statistics from their Reorder 6 systems. The total number of records was 68,243,904, nearly as many as are on the NBN Gateway, with over 20% added in 2011. 21 systems have over a million records. We hope that this will emphasise the importance of Reorder 6 for collecting and collating biological records and that it will help secure adequate funding for it. If you didn’t send in the statistics we would still be please to have them – see http://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?pid=10970#p10970 Please e-mail them to me at s.rankin@btinternet.com .
E-mail: s.rankin@btinternet.com
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