How to get help when conducting an OHI+ assessment
by Ning Jiang
Our redesigned ohi-science.org website has all the open-science resources our team offers. But so many new pages and features might seem a bit overwhelming. Not to worry, here is a quick guide on how to find the resources you need to start your own OHI+ assessment.
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Manual. The Assessment Manual of the Conduct Phase offers information about how to conceptually think about what goals to include and how to set up spatial boundaries, as well as technical step-by-step guide about using the Toolbox to calculate goal scores. It also includes frequently asked quesitons, R troubleshooting examples, and templates on data reporting in the Appendices.
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Goals page. Introducing the philosophy, ideal approaches, practical guidance, and a methods comparison table that include approaches from completed OHI assessments for each goal.
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The Forum. The forum is a way to open a topic discussion and share solutions; it is powered by Github issues. Although the OHI team will help answer questions, the forum is a place for OHI+ groups across the world to interact, so please contribute. Forum issues will also be incorporated into the manual.
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OHI+ projects. This is a place to see all OHI+ projects, including their github repositories, publications, WebApps, etc. See where other OHI+ assessments are happening, and learn what they did through their code and documentation (and get in contact!).
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Error messages. Navigating through error messages can be tricky. You’ll encounter error messages because of the Toolbox, but also in response to commands in R or GitHub. When you encounter an error message, it’s best to check in the Manual, then the Forum: if it is a Toolbox error you will find solutions to navigating around those errors. If you don’t find an answer on ohi-science.org, copy-and-paste the entire error message into a search engine (example: Google). Look for responses from StackOverflow or Github where people encounter and troubleshoot the same errors you have seen. If you don’t find a good solution, post to the Forum!