Hello all: You may recall that earlier this year I posted a note to Cobirds requesting proposals for the design of a new Colorado Bird Records Committee website and online database. At its April Board meeting, the CFO Board accepted the proposal from Ann Johnson (AJEndeavors) for this work. Ann is the secretary of the Iowa Bird Records Committee and has developed similar committee websites for Iowa and Missouri. Since April, a team of CFO members has worked with Ann to develop the new site and I'm excited to announce that we are now ready to make the transition from the current site to this new one.
You will notice some new functions on this site, such as the availability to query the entire dataset (40+ years worth) of Committee records by species, county, and year. We have also incorporated a Google Maps tool to illustrate where these records occurred in the state. The online reporting process is also more robust. You will have the ability to import text from any word processing software so that descriptions, similar species, etc., can be written off-line then pasted into the documentation text box, upload photos in excess of 1MB in size and crop as desired, as well as upload PDFs and other image and sound formats not currently accepted on the current site. While launching a perfect product might sound ideal, the reality is that it is rarely possible even for multi-billion dollar corporations (see any recent iPhone launch). So, we will "go live" with the anticipation that feedback from public users will serve as an expanded beta-testing phase that will help us improve the site beyond what the CFO design and test team did this summer. The site will be live and active, but with your feedback, improvements should be expected over the coming months. So, in order to make this transition possible, tomorrow (Thursday), August 15th the current CFO website link for reporting rare birds will direct you to our new CBRC website. At that time you will see a message that the site is offline for maintenance. All of the current online records (including incomplete documentations) will then be moved to the new site. We anticipate that the new site will be ready for you to report any new sightings and complete any unfinished reports by Monday, August 19th. Please note that the new site will require you to create a new account. We will need to re-assign your incomplete or submitted documentations to your new account so please be patient as you may not have access to your older material for a day or so. You will be able to submit new documentations and query the records database immediately, however. I will make another announcement when the new site is ready. Doug Faulkner CBRC Chair -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/8D0674160BCC5D2-2300-2C76C%40webmail-m224.sysops.aol.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
