Creating and Editing Profiles

Contents

  1. Creating a taxon profile
  2. Copying a profile
  3. Editing a profile
  4. Infraspecific Names

1. Creating a taxon profile

As a contributor, you may be required to create a new profile for a taxon in your treatment. This is because there are many families missing from the existing hard-copy book data that was loaded to the online platform and many new taxa and revisions have occurred since the books were published.

All new profiles should be created to adhere with the Australian Plant Census. The following example is the creation of a profile for APC accepted Callistemon citrinus (Curtis) Skeels, but there was never a treatment for this genus in the hard-copy Flora of Australia.

  1. From the Flora of Australia home page, and you are logged in, on the top right hamburger menu click “Add a new profile”.
  2. In the dialogue box, type the name of the taxon you would like to create. In this case, Callistemon citrinus. Click “Check Name”. This is the name matching process where your name will be matched to an APC accepted name in the Atlas of Living Australia names cache, and will allow the integration of distribution maps and image galleries.
  3. This also works for a synonym of an Accepted Name (e.g. Melaleuca citrinus or Callistemon lanceolatus. In the case of using a synonym, ensure that you click “Yes, use the matched name, to create a profile with the name Callistemon citrinus.
    When the name has been matched successfully, click “Create profile”
  4. This has created a new profile with the occurrence, images from ALA and nomenclature data from NSL linked automatically. This profile is now ready to edit.

When a new profile is created, they are automatically set in ‘Draft mode’ so changes can be made without the public having access to a work in progress. All draft profiles must be published by ABRS before they will be visible to the public.

2. Copying an Existing Profile

As the online Flora of Australia profiles are independent units, there will be some duplication of content across profiles within taxonomic groups. To avoid unnecessary extra effort, profiles can be copied and serve as a template for the profiles of other closely related taxa. To do this:

  1. Click the top hamburger menu –> “Copy an existing profile”
  2. Type the name of the existing profile you wish to copy. Then type the name for the new profile. “Check name” of the new profile against the ALA names cache and the APC, then “Create profile”
  3. The new profile will inherit all the information from the copied profile, which you may now edit.

3. Editing taxon profiles

  1. All editing is conducted in ‘edit mode’. This can be accessed in the top right of a given profile by clicking “Options”–> “Edit”.
  2. So that the public cannot view your work in progress, ensure that you are in ‘Draft mode’. This can be accessed once you have set to edit a profile by clicking “Options”–> “Lock for major revision”. This will bring up a box at the top of the profile saying the profile is now in draft.
  3. All changes in conducted in draft mode can be reversed by clicking “Options”–>”Discard draft changes”.

4. Infraspecific taxon names

subspecies

The platform has trouble dealing with presenting the authority on some names (particularly type infraspecies). To deal with this go to “Edit Name” next to the profile name whilst in “Edit Mode”:

  1. Type in the species name with the authority in the correct place and click “Check name”
    subspecies2
  2. Click “Update Name”
  3. The changes should now be visible.
    subspecies3

See Also: How to Guide: Managing Taxonomy and Nomenclature.