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Citizen science and global biodiversity
Citizen science and global biodiversity

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7.1 Customising your activity – iSpot Projects

iSpot Projects allows you to set up a page that filters out observations for a particular place, time, or species group etc. This page is visible to other iSpotters and enables you to share a particular interest from among the hundreds of observations that are contributed to iSpot each month.

Projects on iSpot have mostly been developed by participants, based on their interests, while others have been developed by the iSpot project team to support learning for an OU course or based on a request from an organisation. A project can be set to filter groups of observations from an area (e.g. a single site or region); by taxonomic rank (e.g. by a family, an order or a single species); or by a selected tag (like the one for this course), habitat or time period. It can be filtered by a combination of any or all of these categories and viewed as a map, picture gallery or summary description.

iSpot project filters are able to capture new observations that have been posted as well as group together historic observations. This makes it easier to access, pick up relevant trends and other information, thereby providing a useful structure for observing and learning.

Activity 4: Working with the online community using iSpot Projects

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes

All observations added to iSpot by students and tagged with the course tag ‘CSGBproject’ will be collated in the project connected with this course. Go to the project developed for the course on iSpot [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Adding a tag to your contribution will allow you to connect with and see observations made by others on this course.

This activity will give you an opportunity to discuss observations that you and other learners have made on this course and what you have deduced from the identifications made. Here is what you must do to complete this activity:

  • Browse the observations posted by you and other learners on the course tagged to the project.
  • Find at least two observations that have received a likely ID.
  • Find two observations with comments from other users.
  • Find and view the reputation scores of at least two other iSpot users who commented on learners’ observations.
  • Determine whether or not your observations have been identified by other users.
  • Make comments on or identify other people’s observations.