Open AccessA new R package, exsic, to assist taxonomists in creating indices
Author(s) -
Simon Reinhard,
Spooner David M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
applications in plant sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 23
ISSN - 2168-0450
DOI - 10.3732/apps.1300024
Subject(s) - r package , software , biology , raw data , software package , herbarium , process (computing) , statistical software , locality , function (biology) , computer science , data mining , database , statistics , information retrieval , data science , mathematics , operating system , botany , linguistics , philosophy , evolutionary biology
• Premise of the study: Taxonomists manage large amounts of specimen data. This is usually initiated in spreadsheets and then converted for publication into locality lists and indices to associate collectors and collector numbers from herbarium sheets to identifications ( exsiccatae ). This conversion process is mostly done by hand and is time‐consuming, cumbersome, and error‐prone. • Methods and Results: We constructed a tool, ‘exsic,’ based on the statistical software R. The exsic function is part of the R package ‘exsic’ and produces specimen citations and exsiccatae conforming to four related formats. • Conclusions: The tool increases speed, efficiency, and accuracy to convert raw spreadsheet tables to publication‐ready content.