Written by Thomas Barton Stone (TL)
I don’t agree with how a lot of modern databases and research repositories are managed as I don’t believe that they are friendly enough on the client side. I want to create the most simple and intuitive system of classification possible such that all future recorded data, including things that may be held in formats that don’t even currently exist, are still very simple for any collaborator or researcher to understand. I also want such a system to make it easier for future collaborators to input data in a similarly intuitive way with as little mental work or interaction with confounding tech slop as possible because researchers/collaborators are tired, work hard, and submitting their work into a local database should be made nearly effortless for them or be very easy to comply with.
On this site, which is a small example of database management next to something like a laboratory repository (for example), the majority of the content is in the form of external links, but there also exists tabular data, images, and preserved code among other things. Obsidian vaults like the one that this site is based on could easily also host other more specific file types, especially if only shared locally and put through the filter of a quartz-hosted site. I’d love to have the freedom to manage something like that potentially using plug-ins, or even simply limiting myself to other markdown-based data organization systems aside from only obsidian, though I have grown incredibly familiar with using the program over the course of the last month.
Metadata management would be the most important thing to be done on the client side, and it is my job to make metadata distinctions clear and easily discernible when evaluating a submitted piece of data.
Detail to security is something that I have not been able to properly demonstrate with this website as I have not encrypted any of the files in this database, but this is something that I am familiar with doing and would certainly be able to do for higher security and sensitive documents in a laboratory setting. (This may even be subject to change as I may attempt to encrypt a file with a password, but this is much easier locally than through quartz in any case).
Specifically any databases dealing with forestry data or forestry research data would be something that I would be incredibly apt to manage as I have a professional background in forestry and forestry research and I understand the type of data that would be collected throughout a number of different types of projects very intimately.
I hope that you’ll find that the passion and motivation that I have for wanting to take this position knows no bounds, such that I would create an entire website over the course of a month nearly for the sole purpose of demonstrating that I am one of the best people that you could hire for the job and that I am incredibly qualified to manage a research database.