Data Jamboree 2/Annotation Experiment

Background:

The curation experiment was given to five curators on the third day of the second data jamboree. The goals of the experiment were to assess curation consistency among a group of new curators, and to identify areas of improvement in curator training, ontology development, and software improvement.

Participant Training:

Only one of the five curators had experience using Phenex prior to the data roundup. Training for all curators consisted of:

• A hands-on, group curation exercise led and assisted by experienced curators given on the first day of the data roundup
• Two days of individual curation work on publications related to each participant's area of taxonomic expertise, with assistance from project personnel
• For reference, participants were given an Annotation Guide with examples of character types commonly encountered in the fish systematic literature

Results:

Character Summary and Suggestions for Improvement

1. Presence or absence of intercalar: (0) present; (1) absent.3

• Consistency: 5/5
• Summary: all curators annotated this character identically

2. Opercle depth to width ratio: (0) less than two; (1) about two or greater than two. Essentially, this character distinguishes between those taxa with a short, relatively broad opercle and those with a tall relatively slender opercle.2

• Consistency: 1/5
• Summary of variable annotations:
  • The majority of curators used various size qualities (e.g., increased width; decreased depth) to describe differences in shape.
• Suggestions to improve consistency:
  • Definitions of size terms need to be improved; also, size and it's children do not share a parent with shape.
  • Annotation of characters with detailed size information should be annotated to higher level (shape in this case).

3. Number of unbranched plus branched pelvic-fin rays: (0) 11; (1) nine; (2) more than 11.3

• Consistency: 3/5
• Summary of variable annotations:
  • Increased count used as quality term for state 2 by one curator; this is OK because parent is_a count
  • Incorrect entity chosen by two curators (pelvic fin actinotrichium instead of pelvic fin lepidotrichium)
  • Quality and Count left blank by one curator

4. Basihyal: (0) present and ossified; (1) present and cartilaginous; (2) absent.1

• Consistency:
• Summary of variable annotations:
  • most curators recorded both presence and absence of bone and cartilage terms for each state
  • bone composition (cartilaginous vs. ossified) used by one curator for quality
• Suggestions and group discussion:
  • for state 2: basihyal cartilage absent implies basihyal bone absent (because the latter develops from the former)
    • in fact it can also be that the cartilage is absent b/c it has developed into the bone (completely ossified)
    • hence need to add that basihyal is absent too
  • graph view can be very helpful to visualize develops_from relationships

5. Position of anterior margin of nasal: (0) falling short of lateral process of mesethmoid (= lateral ethmoid wing of Weitzman, 1962); (1) extending anteriorly to overlie or extend beyond lateral process of mesethmoid.3

• Consistency: 1/5
• Summary:
  • Incorrect entity (naris vs. nasal bone) used in post-composition
  • Monadic qualty incorrectly used rather than relational quality
  • Post-composed entity term chosen rather than approporiate pre-composed term
  • Relational structural quality used rather than relational positional quality
• Suggestions:
  • software should prevent filling in relative entities for qualities that aren't relational
  • full text search of the definitions would be very useful

6. Number of hypurals in upper lobe of caudal fin: (0) four; (1) three.2

• Consistency: 2/5
  • Incorrect post-composition for entity (in various ways; see individual annotations below)
  • Quality and Count left blank
  • contained_in used for post-composition
• Suggestions:
  • display definitions for relationship types (contained_in vs. part_of)
  • hypural can also be "contained in" upper lobe of caudal fin

7. Presence or absence of medially directed, spine-like process on ventral surface of post-temporal: (0) present; (1) absent.3

• Consistency: 3/5
• Summary:
  • post-composed entity incorrectly started with quality term
  • post-composed entity term lacking spatial information
• Suggestions:
  • Software should ensure that entity starts with a spatial or anatomy term if post-composed, not a quality

8. Presence or absence of contact between frontal and pterotic: (0) frontal and pterotic bones in contact; (1) pterotic excluded from contact with frontal by sphenotic.3

• Consistency: 5/5 for state 0; 4/5 for state 1
• Summary:
  • curator mistakenly(?) used same quality for both states
• Suggestions:
  • Record free-text information not used in annotation in the comments field (e.g., sphenotic needs to go into the comment field)

9. Orientation of infrapharyngobranchial 1: (0) proximal tip anteriorly directed; (1) proximal tip posteriorly directed.1

• Consistency: 2/5
  • monadic quality term used incorrectly (related entity used in annotation)
  • less specific entity term used in post-composition (pharyngobranchial vs. pharyngobranchial 1)
  • spatial term incorrectly used as quality term
  • spatial term incorrectly used as related entity
• Suggestions:
  • software should prevent filling in spatial or monadic terms for quality if related entity field is filled.
  • if too complex to express the exact nature of the orientatin, then annotate quality as "orientation"

10. Dermosphenotic (0) triangular; (1) triradiate; (2) tubular.1

• Consistency: 5/5
  • Summary: all curators annotated this character equivalently
  • Discussion about approporiateness of tripartite for state 1

References:

1Hilton, EJ. 2003. Comparative osteology and phylogenetic systematics of fossil and living bony-tongue fishes (Actinopterygii, Teleostei, Osteoglossomorpha). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 137:1-100.

2Sanger, TJ and AR McCune. 2002. Comparative osteology of the Danio (Cyprinidae: Ostariophysi) axial skeleton with comments on Danio relationships based on molecules and morphology. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 135: 529-546.

3Zanata AM and Vari RP. 2005. The family Alestidae (Ostariophysi, Characiformes): a phylogenetic analysis of a trans-Atlantic clade. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 145: 1-144.

Comparison of Consistency Experiment I vs. II

Character #	# Participants with Completed Annotations (n=4; Exp. I)	% Consistency with Key (Exp. I)	# Participants with Completed Annotations (n=5; Exp. II)	% Consistency with Key (Exp. II)
1	4	100	5	100
2	3	0	5	20
3	3	0	4	60
4	4	0	5
5	3	33	5	20
6	4	0	5	40
7	4	50	5	60
8	3	33	5	100
9	3	0	5	40
10	2	50	5	100