New Features: Updated Dashboard and Request a Cemetery
We’ve updated the Dashboard to improve your experience on BillionGraves.com. Your profile is at the top of the page, and you can easily keep track of your progress, including the number of images you’ve submitted or transcribed. From the Dashboard, you can join or create a team and keep track of its progress. We’ve also made it easy for you to invite your friends to join BillionGraves: you can send an email or share on Facebook information for friends and family to learn more about BillionGraves.
Another new feature added to the Dashboard is the Request Board. From the Request Board, you can Request a Cemetery. This means if there is a cemetery or specific headstones you would like to see documented and included on BillionGraves, you can put out a request. Then, people living in the area of the cemetery can accept the request and visit that cemetery and take pictures for you.
How it works:
- Add a request: You can Add a Request to request images of specific headstones in a specific cemetery. This request will be posted on the Request Board and sent to users who live in the area of your requested cemetery. When another user accepts your request and uploads one or more images from your specified cemetery, you will receive an email telling you how many images were uploaded and giving you the option to begin transcribing those images.
- Receive cemetery requests in your area: On the Manage My Requests page, you can sign up to be notified of any cemetery requests in your area. You won’t receive cemetery requests unless you sign up. If any requests are posted within the area you specify, you will be sent an email with details about the request.
- Accept a request: To accept a request, go to the Request Board, find a cemetery request near you, and click on it. Below the map in the Request Information box, you will be able to read any additional information about the request. Click “accept request” if you wish to complete someone’s request.
If you want to review requests you’ve submitted and accepted, go to the Manage My Requests page.
Check out all these new features! We appreciate your efforts, and we are always working hard to improve your experience with BillionGraves.
Training Materials for BillionGraves
We want everyone to participate in the BillionGraves project, so we’ve created some basic tutorials and training materials for you. The materials can be read online or printed for your convenience.
Take our quick reference guide with you to the cemetery to help you on your first trip or to help others quickly learn how to participate.
Look at our Eagle Scout Project reference guide to help you get started and to help you train other people on using BillionGraves during your project.
Hand out our information packets in seminars, conferences, team gatherings, etc.
Organize your team for the BillionGraves Team iPad Giveaway with the team recruitment flyer.
You can also view all of these training materials on our website.
New Transcription Features
We are always looking for ways to improve your experience with BillionGraves, and today we have added two new features to transcribing:
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You can now transcribe sets of linked images together. You will know if you have a set of images to transcribe if below the transcription text boxes, you see a row of thumbnails of the images that are linked together.
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Now you can choose the country from which you would like to transcribe headstones.
| Note: if you are having any problems with the transcription page, clear your browser’s cache. This should resolve any problems. If anything is still having problems after clearing the cache, please contact us and let us know. |
Testers Needed for a New Feature
Cemetery News Feed
Now you can see all the BillionGraves activity from your dashboard. We’ve added an activity monitor and news feed to the BillionGraves website. Once you log in, you’ll see your dashboard, and in the window just below your profile picture is a set of scrolling news items. This window will display new batches of images, recently added cemeteries, new blog posts, and other items of interest.
The activity monitor will make it easier to see when there’s progress in the BillionGraves effort. (When the photo collectors and transcribers are keeping pace with each other, it’s hard to tell that anything’s happening.) It can also help you see when cemeteries and photos are added to areas that pertain to your research.
New batches of photos and cemetery additions may take some time to reach the activity monitor. Cemeteries need to be approved before they show up in searches or in the monitor, and we don’t want to report a batch of photos before the whole collection has been uploaded (otherwise the news feed will be full of announcements of 1–2 photos when a single 498-photo announcement would have done just as well). Even though the new items won’t strictly be in real time, they’ll still be an easy way to keep your fingers on the BillionGraves pulse.