John J. Frett, Associate Professor Department of Plant and Soil Sciences
Elizabeth O. Mackenzie, Research Associate Department of Food and Resource Economics
Dr. Dewey Caron, Professor Department of Entomology and Applied Ecology
An application of technology that is growing at a staggering rate is the internet. Internet connections offer something for everyone. Actually, they offer a great deal. The internet provides connections to world wide sources of information without additional cost to the user. You could spend days searching the information on internet. Due to the staggering amount of information already available, some companies are employing individuals to search the internet to catalog the applications that are available on a specific topic. This will allow the company to build directories for their specific use and their users.
Compact disks (CD) are another technology being developed for many different educational applications. CDs are a versatile medium that provide an inexpensive method to store and access large quantities of information. Many applications incorporate audio and image files to create a multi-media presentation to the user. CDs provide a relatively inexpensive method to store these file for future retrieval on the internet.
A combination of these two technologies can provide an extraordinary resource to a great number of people essentially free of charge. The development of " A Tour of the University of Delaware Botanic Gardens" available on the world wide web (http://bluehen.ags.udel.edu/udgarden.html) offers such a resource to individuals interested in woody and herbaceous landscape plants. The digitization of slides makes color images of plants available as the user reads related text. Although the information is being compiled for the University of Delaware Botanic Gardens, the information and images are applicable to plants in most situations.
There are many examples of applications of this technology in horticulture. A primary area of use is in teaching ( 3, 4, 13 ) and providing information about landscape plant materials ( 8 ). These technologies are quite appropriate due to the nature of teaching plant material. Plant materials courses cover a tremendous quantity of repetitive information. Database programs, especially programs with links to images such as Mosaic are ideally suited to providing student access to specific information during and after the course. Extension and outreach programming, in agriculture colleges and other service oriented institutions, also are beginning to utilize these new technologies ( 9, 13 ). The use of the internet provides clients with the latest information that is immediately available on-line. There is no need to wait or visit an extension office. Additionally, the information can be updated in the master file without the publication of new brochures.
The Mosaic tour of the University of Delaware Botanic Gardens was built from reference texts ( 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12 ), conversations with authorities, personal experience and slides of plants taken around the world. The slides were converted to photoCD then stamped with a copyright, the university logo and the name of the college using Adobe Photoshop . PhotoCDs were chosen to digitize the slides rather than a slide scanner like the Nikon Coolscan because of the convenient storage CDs offer and the high resolution of the digitized images.
Once the slides were processed they were copied to the server, a SUN IPX. The plant descriptions were edited to produce html files linking the descriptions to appropriate images. For instance, the portion of the text describing the plant's flower was linked to one or more images of the that plant's flower. The Tour is served using a combination of a gopher server and Plexus. Gopher was used originally because this project grew out of an existing gopher server. Plexus was added to provide decoding capabilities for mapimages such as the Cones Page.
The "Tour of the University of Delaware Botanic Gardens" is being developed to serve several different audiences. First the program will provide information to garden visitors. Visitors may access a list of the plants in the garden, obtain information specific to an individual plant, locate a plant in the collection via a map, or identify a plant in the garden based on location. Secondly, the program is used in both the woody and herbaceous plant materials courses taught at the University of Delaware. Students can use the program as a study aid to enhance lecture materials, locate plants for study in the botanic gardens and view plants in multiple seasons through inline images. Finally, any internet user may access the program for general information about landscape plants, or the University of Delaware Botanic Gardens (UDBG). Although this was not an initial target group, it may be the largest group of users accessing the information.
The tour of the botanic gardens is available through the University of Delaware's College of Agricultural Sciences WWW home page by accessing http://bluehen.ags.udel.edu. The home page for the botanic gardens offers the user a variety of paths to access information. All underlined words and phrases in blue lettering are linked to either audio, visual, or additional text files that are called up by placing the cursor on the word and clicking the mouse button once. The first occurrence of an image is available by clicking on the word grounds which will display a map of the botanic gardens grounds. Each of the individual gardens that make up the UDBG are labeled. This can be used to orient a visitor or the visitor may click on a specific garden to see a list of plants in that particular garden. There is also a list of the individual gardens on the botanic gardens home page that will provide the user direct access to each of the gardens for informational proposes.
A third option is available at the end of the list of specific gardens, Alternate Views. This provides users with access to groups of plants such as conifers, broad-leaf evergreens, small flowering trees, trees, shrubs, annuals or perennials. When the user selects a group of plants they will view a list of plants in that particular category. This provides the user with a simple way of determining if a particular plant is in the botanic gardens. Also available from Alternative Views is a series of collages such as Pine Cone Identification. This is one of several future collages that will provide the user with a series of small images of a particular plant structure. With the example of the pine cones, both male and female cones of several different conifers are presented. The user can match an unidentified cone with one of those pictured and select that image by clicking the mouse. The program will access the information and all other images of that plant for the user to verify that it is the correct plant. Collages of flowers, leaves, foliage color, etc. will be compiled provide a method of plant selection for landscape use based on a particular character, as well as to identify plants.
The majority of the botanic gardens program utilizes various methods to route the user to the desired information. Typically, the information the user wants is contained in the plant description pages. Each plant has a page providing information such as the Latin and common names, mature height and habit, botanical description, landscape use, cultural information and a list of cultivars. This information is presented in a standardized format to facilitate information retrieval. Most of this is general information available in many reference texts, although information specific to the Botanic Gardens and the mid-Atlantic region also is included. The unique aspect of this program is the links to image and audio files. The audio files provide the pronunciation of the Latin name. This is a great aid to student and visitors alike that are unfamiliar and intimidated by botanical Latin.
The image files are the greatest asset to the user. Multiple images are available to provide additional information and clarification in the context of the text that the user is reading. For example, if the user is reading a description of the red fall color of glossary at the bottom of each plant information page. This may or may not answer all of the user's questions sufficiently but the image is available to illustrate the terminal bud of red maple. The image will demonstrate the meaning of the descriptive terms and serve to illustrate exactly what the bud looks like. Multiple images are available for each plants and are being continually updated. Over 1500 images are currently being linked to text in this application. These images are helpful from an educational aspect as well as in the application of the written information. To say that a flower is outstanding, attractive, or of no significance requires a judgment by the author but the images allow the user to make the decision.
The newest addition to the features available is the link to the developing insect program in the Department of Entomology and Applied Ecology at the University of Delaware that is being developed by Dr. Dewey Caron. Each plant information page has a list of pests that can be detrimental to the plant. As the insect program develops, the user will be able to click on the insect name and move to the insect program to obtain information on the life-cycle and control of the insect. Images are also available to aid in the identification of the insect problem.
The development of the "Tour of the University of Delaware Botanic Gardens" provides a unique and valuable tool that serves many different clients. As a source of information for the UDBG it provides specific information about the collection to visitors that otherwise would not be available. As a tool for teaching, it allows students to augment course materials and gain additional insight into the appearance of the plants in all seasons, not just the season in which the plants are studied. As a program available on the internet, it provides, free of charge, the most comprehensive and user friendly source of information on landscape plants.
email: jfrett@strauss.udel.edu
Betsy Mackenzie Betsy Mackenzie received her B.S. degree in Agricultural Business Management from the University of Delaware. She is currently the computer site coordinator for the College of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Delaware. She also maintains the Gopher and WWW server for the college.
email: betsy@bluehen.ags.udel.edu