Tutorial

Learn how to contribute an image to the Encyclopedia of Life

December 2008

http://www.flickr.com/groups/encyclopedia_of_life

Overview• Join Flickr• Join the EOL Group• Upload your photo (make sure it is public)• Add at least one machine tag• Change the license on your image• Add the image to the EOL group pool of photos• Previous three steps may be done in any order• Images will be automatically gathered up by EOL and

displayed as “un-vetted content”

Join Flickr

• Go to Create New Yahoo Account

• If you already have a Yahoo ID you can use it to register at Flickr

Go to the EOL Images group homepage http://www.flickr.com/groups/encyclopedia_of_life

Click Join This Group and become a member. You will need to accept the basic rules of the group in order to join. Scroll down the group homepage to learn more about the group before you begin.

Join the EOL Group

Click on the blue arrow next to the “You” menu near the top of your screen. Options will appear. Drag your pointer down to click on Upload Photos and Videos

Upload your photo

Click Choose photos and a dialogue box will open:

The dialogue box allows you to select the file you want to upload. Larger file sizes are best.

Now your selected photo(s) should appear on the upload list. Make sure the privacy is set to “Public” and then click the pink button that says Upload Photos

Once Flickr finishes uploading the photo, a green checkmark will appear. You can add the description now but let’s try adding it later. Instead, go back to the You pull-down menu and view your photostream, Flickr’s name for its display of your most recently-uploaded images.

The photo will be added to your photostream (see image on the left of this slide). Click on the photo. You will see many options. Click Add a tag near the top of the list on the right. A tag provides information about what is pictured in the image. A special kind of tag called a “machine tag” will help a machine (a computer program) place this image onto the correct EOL species page. A machine tag is different from a regular tag because it has an equals sign = in it. You can read more about machine tags here

Type the taxonomy tag very carefully into the box that opens. Leave a space between tags. If binomial, the entire tag must be enclosed in quotes so that the computer does not think that the species name, (which is typed after entering the Genus name and including one space), is a separate tag.

BEST TAG “taxonomy:binomial=Genus species”

After you type in a machine tag (readable by computers with an equals sign) that contains some taxonomic identification into the box that opens, click the blue ADD button. You should see the tag appear on the right. If it is your only tag you should see it under tags. If you have some non-machine tags (no equals signs) it will show up under a machine tags heading.

You can use one or more of the following machine tags:

You only need ONE of these tags for your image to be included in EOL. Binomial is best, but you can be less specific if necessary. The names (except for common names) should be the Latin, scientific names for the organisms.

•taxonomy:kingdom=* for example “taxonomy:binomial=Vanessa atalanta”•taxonomy:phylum=* taxonomy:order=Lepidoptera•taxonomy:class= *•taxonomy:order=*•taxonomy:family=*•taxonomy:genus=*•taxonomy:species=*•taxonomy:binomial=* [e.g. genus and species with a space between them, enclose in quotes when you type]•taxonomy:trinomial=* [e.g. genus, species, and subspecies with spaces between them, enclose in quotes when you type]•taxonomy:common=* [the common, or vernacular, name, probably need quotes if the common name involves two words]•*replace with the name --- There should not be an actual asterisk in your tag.

If you need help identifying the organism in your photo, see the If you need help identifying the organism in your photo, see the ID Help thread in our Flickr EOL Images group discussion.thread in our Flickr EOL Images group discussion.

If you have a regular tag (one that doesn’t contain an = to be read by the computer) your machine tag shows up in a special section. Here in the red circle, we clicked on Show machine tags to see it. It does not matter whether your machine tag appears with the regular tags or in the machine tag category, as long as you have a tag somewhere that contains an = and some accurate taxonomic information!

Now we’ll look on the right side of the page and click (edit) next to All rights reserved under the heading Additional Information.

Change the License

By clicking (edit) next to All rights reserved on the previous page, you now see the following options. To be eligible for inclusion on the EOL website, you must choose one of the licenses marked by a red circle:

If you are going to be submitting a lot of photos to EOL, you will want to change your default license so you don’t have to set the license one at a time. Read more at the thread about licenses.

Change the License

Now that your photo is public, has an acceptable copyright license, and contains a machine tag…click the “Send to Group” icon above your photo.

Send to Group

Add Your Image to the EOL Images Group Pool

If you’ve successfully added your image to the Encyclopedia of Life Image pool, you should now see it on the front page of the EOL group homepage. Thank you for contributing!

Resources

• If you had trouble, please post a comment on the discussion board or read through the group’s threads to see if anyone may have already asked the same question.

• Share your thoughts on the EOL Forum - http://forum.eol.org/ • You can also upload multiple images using downloadable Flickr

tools - http://www.flickr.com/tools/

Created by Rebecca Taylor