The ALA Species List tool is now streamlined and easier to use.
This tool lets users make, upload and maintain a personalised list of species of interest. This can be used either manually or via an API within or external to ALA data.
Project Manager for the Lists Upgrade, Tania Laity, said it’s now easier to update and query lists.
“We’ve upgraded the front end, so it’s more intuitive for users and more useful,” Tania said.
“That’s probably the key point.”
What does the List tool do?
The lists tool forms the core of how the ALA manages restricted access species data and how we apply obfuscations to records to protect sensitive species data.
We use Lists to store the threatened species lists from states and territories, and add their threat status to the species pages and location data.
“The two main things people are looking to find are the conservation lists—the threatened species lists from all the States and Territories—and the sensitive species lists,” Tania said.
The lists tool brings all these lists together in one place—instead of having to go to individual websites to find each list.
It’s also used to add taxa to the taxonomy that aren’t yet included in other taxonomic sources and for Biosecurity Alerts, which uses lists to send alerts of sightings of invasive species to biosecurity agencies.
Using Lists for searching
Rather than undertaking quite complex queries of applying multiple filters to select particular species, users can create a list of the exact species of interest and use it like a query.
“If you create a list for the species you’re interested in, you can open the list and view all the records for those species,” Tania said.
The lists tool is also used in the spatial portal by industry users like environmental consultants to search for threatened species, or particular threatened species, in an area where they’re doing an environmental assessment.
Checking it twice
A big part of the project was helping users find the right lists and understand how to use them to query the data.
“The beginning of the process was to identify all important lists that are used in ALA tools and systems,” Tania said.
For lists created in Spatial Portal the default setting had previously been to make them public.
“It was generating all these lists, which was confusing if someone was just looking for the authoritative threatened species list, as they would have to search through thousands of lists to try to find the right one” Tania said.
“We’ve now made them private by default so the people who created them can still use them if they want to by logging in,” Tania said.
Now when users create a list, it will automatically be set to private.
Faster, fresher and focused on the future
The refreshed lists tool has an updated user interface, and it’s faster.
“There used to be a limit on how many species it would query when you went to view all records, but now it views everything,” Tania says.
“So you can put in quite a big list, say a few thousand species, and it will now show all records for all of those species.”
“And it’s easier for other users to search and find the lists they are looking for, such as conservation lists.”
The next phase of the project will look at better governance processes for lists.
There’ll be more tidying up and reclassifying, and clearer processes to manage lists and make them more understandable for users.
“The aim is to make it as easy as possible for people to search and find the list they want!”
