These pages cover the decisions that are cheap to make before a field season and expensive to undo after it: how a team agrees on one configuration, what a record has to say for itself, and how transfers and backups are verified. Apply your institution's collection and data policies alongside them.
The pages
Section titled “The pages”- App Setup — configure and rehearse on every device.
- Project Management — assign responsibilities, coordinate identifiers, and manage transfers.
- Data Collection — name sites and coordinates, georeference specimens, and document observations.
- Data Management and Specimen Curation — review records, protect files, and prepare exports and labels.
- Device Choice and Care — choose equipment, and plan power, storage, and offline work.
How to read them
Section titled “How to read them”These pages are guidance, not rules. They describe what has held up across a range of projects, written so you can see what each recommendation rests on and decide whether it fits. You know your taxa, your terrain, your team, and your permits better than a general recommendation can. Where the advice does not fit the work in front of you, depart from it deliberately and record why — a documented departure is a method; an undocumented one is a gap someone will hit later.
Where your institution, museum, funder, or permit sets a protocol, that protocol governs. Follow it, and read these pages as a way to fill the gaps it leaves rather than as competing instruction. The same holds for a lab manual, a data management plan, an animal-care approval, or an agreement with a landowner or community. Nothing here grants permission, certifies that a practice is compliant, or replaces the judgment of the people accountable for your collection.
Each page leads with the recommendation and a worked example. Where a recommendation rests on published work, the source and its numbers sit in a separate note — skip those notes and the guidance still stands; read them when you need to judge whether a recommendation applies to your project rather than taking it on trust. Where a statement simply describes how NAHPU behaves, it is software behavior and carries no citation.
New to NAHPU? Start with Day One to learn the concepts in a practice project. The Usage guides explain individual fields and controls; the Cookbook provides task instructions.
Review these arrangements when people, devices, methods, or project requirements change. Keep the agreed protocol and unresolved issues with the project documentation.