Occurrence

A crowdsourcing approach to collecting photo-based insect and plant observation records

Latest version published by National Institute of Genetics, ROIS on 11 January 2018 National Institute of Genetics, ROIS
Publication date:
11 January 2018
License:
CC-BY 4.0

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Data as a DwC-A file download 843 records in English (22 KB) - Update frequency: not planned
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Description

Background: Scientific field observation by members of the public is known as citizen science and has become popular all across the world. Citizen science is advantageous for collecting large amounts of scientific data and can be seen as a crowdsourcing approach to data collection. Information and communications technology is enhancing the availability of citizen science. Mobile devices, such as mobile phones, that have a digital camera with a global positioning system (GPS) are necessities of contemporary life and can be utilized as powerful observation tools in citizen science. New information: We developed a web-based system as a data collection tool for citizen science. Participants submit an e-mail with a photo taken by their mobile phones. The photos contain location information, which can be easily and automatically embedded if the mobile phone is equipped with GPS. We collaborated with regional event managers, such as museum curators, and held citizen science events in each region and for various target taxonomic groups. All photos were stored in our data server, and the organisms were taxonomically identified by citizen scientists, regional managers, and us. In total, 154 species and 843 data records were collected in this project conducted from 2011 to 2016.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 843 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Osawa T (2017): A crowdsourcing approach to collecting photo-based insect and plant observation records. v1.3. No organisation. Dataset/Occurrence. http://localhost:8080/ipt/resource?r=mobile_photopj&v=1.3

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Institute of Genetics, ROIS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: c671d43f-7fb9-4b5a-a964-630bfbf47dd2.  National Institute of Genetics, ROIS publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Japan.

Keywords

Citizen science

Contacts

Takeshi Osawa
  • Metadata Provider
  • Author
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Senior Researcher
Institute for Agro-Envieonmental Sciences, NARO
JP

Geographic Coverage

The collection sites of the data provided here are distributed across Japan, from Hokkaido to the southern islands. A few foreign records are also included.

Bounding Coordinates South West [29.993, 129.199], North East [45.337, 147.48]

Taxonomic Coverage

With regard to taxonomy and systematics, all species were identified by the regional managers and authors according to the morphotypes of objects. If we could not obtain sufficient information for proper species identification, i.e. the species which is difficult to identify, we did not include that record in this data paper. As a result, we have provided 843 records of 154 species. Thus, these species were ordinary which can identify easily based on photo.

Kingdom Plantae/Animalia

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2011-06-01 / 2016-10-01

Project Data

This project does not have specific themes, such as target species. Instead, the themes are chosen by regional project managers, who have their own targets, motivations, and purposes. Thus, the project was designed to include a variety of approaches, have different goals, and involve many scientific disciplines. Increasing participation in citizen science projects is essential, and devising strategies on how to attract participants and deciding which themes will enhance participation are critical challenges.

Title NIAES mobile photo project
Funding JSPS KAKENHI grants no. 15K12154 and no. 24651040.
Design Description We have provided the platform (described in the Sampling methods section) of an internet-based photo-collection system for regional managers. We help regional managers to arrange data collection events, but the data collection itself is handled by the regional managers. For example, the manager could be a natural history museum curator who is interested in organizing nature walks that incorporate photography, or an environmental non-profit organization that is conducting a survey of alien invasive species around a locality. Each regional manager arranges the data collection method, recruits participants, and posts photos to our system via e-mail. Those e-mails are then automatically handled by the system and are stored in the system’s data server.

The personnel involved in the project:

NIAES

Sampling Methods

We developed a web-based system to collect photos taken by citizen scientists. The system is a customized version of the commercial mobile photo system developed by Fujitsu FIP, Co. (http://www.fujitsu.com/jp/group/fip/solutions/business-and-technology-solutions/sustainability-solution/management/biodiversity/; accessed 10 August 2017). Customized system could set a several subsystem which independent in each. Each regional manager can set that according to their purpose of the collection event and managed that. In the subsystem, regional manager can manage photo which collected their event only. The main system which managed by us, we can manage all photos collected by all subsystems. The data collection procedure is simple: a participant takes a photo of the observation target and sends an e-mail with the photo that has geographic information embedded by GPS. The timing and location of all the photos sent to the system are automatically extracted and stored in the data server. The records and the photos are available to be viewed by participants in our project websites from 2011 to 2016 (Note, however, that they are currently closed.) with the map of our web GIS.

Study Extent The collection sites of the data provided here are distributed across Japan, from Hokkaido to the southern islands.

Method step description:

  1. We discuss the rationale for each event with the regional manager beforehand and set up an event-specific subsystem for projects. We designate an event-specific address to which the participants send their e-mails. Event-specific websites which relate to each subsystem were opened. For some observation events, we ask citizen scientists to identify the organisms that they have observed and put the names of the organisms in their e-mails. We help regional managers to check all records posted and re-examine the species names classified by the citizen scientists on the basis of the photos attached. We have removed records that could not be identified to the species level from a photo.

Additional Metadata

Alternative Identifiers c671d43f-7fb9-4b5a-a964-630bfbf47dd2
http://www.gbif.jp/ipt/resource?r=niaes_mobile_photopj1