Interactive Keys

Systematists (led by Yeates), multimedia designers, and programmers at the University of Queensland have developed LucID, a computer program system designed for building and using interactive keys for the identification of organisms in multimedia environments. The program allows the user to begin the identification of an organism with any character and continue in any desired character order. Still images, video, and sound may be accessed at any stage to increase the speed and accuracy of identification. A galaxy of information, images and other resources may be retrieved using the organism's name as an index once the identification is complete. Interactive keys to the genus Chromolepida and to the genera of the Cyclotelini were constructed and are being used at UIUC. They will be integrated with other aspects of web-based information once software currently being developed allows LucID to interact with the WWW. We use LucID in demonstrations to students of all ages as an example of how people go about identifying organisms that they have in front of them. LucID is now distributed by CSIRO Publishing (version 1.5 to be released shortly).

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