When experts join the platform

Thomas Mesaglio inspired many of us, ‘When experts join the iNaturalist platform they are able to identify more species accurately. Citizen scientists then begin to learn how to make identifications of those particular species. With this new knowledge, citizen scientists themselves start to make better identifications independently of the experts. They become more enthused and make more observations of those particular species, and they end up making better observations. Experts are able to say to observers which features of a particular species must be photographed and where it can be found. This improves the quality of the data as a whole, which incentivises more experts to join iNat.

A common reason for experts not engaging with the platform is that for some taxa the quality can be low and there are often misidentifications which deter experts. But, as data improves experts are more likely to join iNat, which in turn improves the data, which in turn makes more experts join. It is called the positive feedback loop – where experts join and data quality just gets better and better, and iNat data is going from strength to strength.'

Here is the link to Thomas Mesaglio’s full presentation. He also talks about how he has used iNat data for own scientific papers: https://www.greatsouthernbioblitz.org/post/thomas-mesagli-s-how-to-explore-nature-inspires-sandy-clearly-south-african

Posted on July 8, 2022 09:53 AM by c_brunke c_brunke

Comments

Nice post Charleen @thebeachcomber would appreciate his outreach is apreciated

Posted by saltmarshsteve over 1 year ago

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