How would you best describe your position or title? (Choose one)

When searching for museum or collection data, which resource(s) do you usually use? (Check all that apply)

Concerning your work, research and/or interests, in which of the general topics below are you interested? Note: This list is not exhaustive, and pertains to fields that could benefit from improved access to natural history data. (Check all that apply)

What are your purposes for using MaNIS, HerpNET, ORNIS and/or FishNet II? (Check all that apply)

In addition to voucher specimen based records, observational data and acoustic data are available through ORNIS. However, MaNIS participants suggested observational data might be unreliable for mammals. Should observational data be included in HerpNET, FishNet II and/or VertNet?

If observational data were included, should users be able to add data records to the networks without accessioning data through one of the providing institutions? Example 1: a graduate student has latitude and longitude data for fish they surveyed during a research project. However, the fish have been dissected and there is no voucher specimen available. Example 2: a citizen science project surveyed a local park with gps and cameras. Should these groups be able to upload their data directly to the network?

Should other voucher based collections, such as paleontology, be included in VertNet?

Would it be useful to search by taxonomic synonym? For example: some members of the genus Hyla were put into the genus Pseudacris, however some collections may not have updated their catalog to reflect this change. Would it be useful to bring up both genera in a search?

Should common names be included in the search criteria?

Would it be useful to search by phylogenetic tree? For example: the Tree of Life has a search function that allows you to browse by evolutionary relationship. (Link will take you to Tree of Life web service, vertebrate root.)

The ability to view environmental and climate data such as forest cover or precipitation.

The ability to generate and visualize species distribution maps in the VertNet portal.

The ability to view expert opinion maps for species distributions on the mapping feature. For example: AmphibiaWeb displays Global Amphibian Assessment maps along with HerpNET locality data. (Link takes you to the Berkeley Mapper result for Bufo californicus on AmphibiaWeb. GAA map displayed in peach color.)

Measures or ratings of quality and completeness for a data record. For example: a specimen record that does not include date collected or geographic coordinates would be flagged with a lower score than a record that has all fields populated.

The ability to upload your own data to a workspace and use any VertNet tools without making your data public. For example: you could visualize data points on a map, produce your own distribution models and check records for quality and completeness.

Social networking and communication tools. For example: you would be able to communicate with other users, make comments or ask questions.

Summary statistics within and across collections. For example: Total number of specimens available on VertNet, number of bird observations in a collection, total vertebrate species counts by country, total number of records with latitude and longitude, etc.

Subscriptions to changes, updates or annotations to the data Example 1: a query you had performed before returned 100 specimens, now there are 150 available. Example 2: another user has noticed an error in your collection database. Would you like to have the option to subscribe to these notifications?

The ability to filter results in steps, as opposed to developing a comprehensive query. For example: you performed a search for "Genus" equals "Rana." Next, you could filter your results by "Country" equals "Myanmar." Then further filter for records with coordinates with "DecimalLatitude" is not "Null."

The ability to save your past search terms and/or results.

A social digitization tool? For example: reCaptcha is a web tool that allows people to type handwritten or blurry text into a database, thereby digitizing that information and making text searchable. (link takes you to the about page for reCaptcha)

Overall, do you find the current search portal format easy to use? (Here is a link to the VertNet demonstration portal, which is the same format as MaNIS, HerpNET and ORNIS)