OpenKey: Illinois-North Carolina Collaborative Environment for Botanical Resources

The Illinois North Carolina Collaborative Environment for Botanical Resources seeks to revolutionize access to botanical resources by incorporating the methods botanists use to identify plant species and by simplifying and visualizing the process of identification. This project is supported by a partnership between the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), two leading institutions. The project’s major goals include creating four polyclave keys that will visually capture the way botanical experts identify species; teaching and observing nonprofessionals in using and testing these keys for species identification; enlisting community citizens in documenting selected plant habitats in four important environmental monitoring projects (PrarieWatch and ForestWatch in Illinois and Wildflower and TreeWatch in North Carolina); creating a use-based collection of botanical resources to support biodiversity surveys; providing citizen and experts with access to a larger array of botanical resources through a UIUC and UNC-CH collaborative collection development and digitization plan; and producing an information store of high-quality botanical images that support species identification. The design of the project provides a framework that will foster scientific learning by citizen scientists who want to assist in documenting plant habits necessary for monitoring changes in the environment. The polyclave keys with data gathered by citizen scientists will be made available to other libraries and museums throughout the World Wide Web after development and testing. We will actively promote the use of the polyclave keys, enhance the flow of scientific information, and share expert investigative processes with other botanists and nonprofessionals who want to expand their knowledge of the natural world and contribute to the documentation of plant habits.