The NCMNS API Platform was a multi-functional data publishing platform. The overarching goal of the platform was to provide a blueprint for the construction of RESTful APIs to support scientific research, primarily in the fields of biodiversity informatics, biodiversity, geology, and paleontology.
The website is a single-page design, built to support the nation-wide, citizen science camera trapping project, Snapshot USA. You can read more about the project by visiting the site. Check out the bear!
The NCMNS Metrics Dashboard is a data visualization platform built to support institutional priorities and communicate performance to staff, key stakeholders, and policy-makers. The primary charting libraries are AmCharts (https://www.amcharts.com/) and d3.js (https://d3js.org/) with data sources provided through a custom RESTful API. The platform itself is built using the MVC Framework, Laravel.
The 100 Counties Project of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences allowed the public to explore how the Museum engages all 100 counties across North Carolina. Statistics were visualized through an interactive map and animated charts with summaries of each category. The data was updated annually and served through a custom RESTful API.
The State of Mammals website is a small single-page website to provide information about a proposed big data project in Mammalogy and Wildlife Biology.
A podcast hosted by Dr. Eric Dorfman, former Director and CEO of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and Dr. Dan Dombrowski, the Museum’s Chief Veterinarian. Along with their featured guests, the hosts identify and explore our innate connections to nature through science, art, and living to promote the importance of preserving and protecting our wildlife and wild places to maintain these connections for better health and happiness. The Biophilia Podcast is a production of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
In 2022, the Biophilia Podcast became the Love Nature Podcast with new branding and design. The Love Nature website now occupies the virtual space formerly held by its predecessor.
The Candid Critters Project Management system (CAPS) is a custom web application to support the NC Candid Critters project workflow. CAPS is built using the Laravel MVC Framework with a MYSQL database backend. The web application features a wide array of features that include camera management, reservation and training tracking, site mapping, and custom reports generated on the fly.
The architecture of the application is divided into modules that provide support for specific sections of the workflow. This way the application can target and scale to particular needs. These modules with a short description are as follows:
The NCSM 3D model gallery enabled viewers to interact with three-dimensional reconstructions of specimens from the three paleontology collections at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The viewer used the 3D JavaScript library, three.js, with data pulled from the Museum’s primary RESTful API.
NC Environmental Restoration Association is a 501c industry group that represents environmental restoration professionals in North Carolina. The website is a ‘single page application'(SPA) where all of the content loads dynamically within a single page request.
A project information website for NC Candid Critters, a citizen science camera trap survey of North Carolina. Citizen scientists get to explore the outdoors and learn about the critters living in their community while helping us gain information that can be used for conservation and management purposes. The project is based at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in collaboration with NC State University, NC Wildlife Resources Commission, the State Library of NC, NC Cardinal, the Public Libraries of North Carolina, and the Smithsonian.
The Online Collections web application, project name Aves, is a search and data-sharing platform for biological, geological, and paleontological collections. The application was built using the Laravel and Vue.js frameworks. Bootstrap takes care of the responsive behavior, vivus.js for SVG animations, and jQuery Datatables for the display and interactivity of search results. Several collections included a web map for georeferenced specimens using Leaflet and custom GeoJSON API endpoints. The system even includes a simple collections management tool with features that include storage and photo management.
The Online Collections portal belonged to the internal collections interconnected network, a set of web applications that communicated with one another through custom APIs. Here, media in the form of 3-D models, images, and scans of primary sources (e.g., ledgers, labels, and collection cards) associated with specimens were provided by the Collections Asset Manager (CAMS). Spatial datasets, controlled vocabularies, collections metrics are provided dynamically by a Data Publishing Platform.
The Collections Asset Management System (CAMS) is a digital asset management system that is specifically designed to support natural history collections. Asset capture, automatic metadata extraction, image viewing and modification, custom categorization, and support for a wide variety of file types are among the platform’s features. A sophisticated web interface and API were used to share, search, and download assets.
A ‘proof of concept’ collection of data visualizations using d3.js. The data is derived from taxonomic information directly from the collections databases at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The result is an interactive radial tree that provides a different way of thinking about taxonomy.
Ecosystem Planning & Restoration is an environmental firm that provides services to support a sustainable environment with a standard, small company, information-driven website.
CitSciScribe was a digital transcription project of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The application provided citizen scientists the opportunity to digitize hand-written collection cards and ledgers associated with orphaned collections acquired by the Museum.
NCSM Species Mapper was an interactive data visualization and web mapping application that allowed end users to map the georeferenced specimens in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences’ collections. An array of features and data layers were included to meet the needs of both researchers and educators.
