iNaturalistUK
iNaturalistUK User Group – April 2022
April 2022
Update from the user group meeting that took place on Tuesday 19 April 2022 between 2 and 4 pm (online).
Presentations were given as follows:
- The Marine Biological Association :projects coming up during 2022 which will utilise iNaturalistUK data. (View MBA’s presentation)
- The Natural History Consortium shared information on the City Nature Challenge including what is involved and how we can encourage more places to take part in 2023. (View NHC’s presentation)
- The Natural History Museum, London shared their findings from Fat Spider Fortnight and Slime Search (View NHM’s presentation)
Watch the presentations on YouTube.
The presentations were followed by some questions including sharing by users of their projects.
Read more about the City Nature Challenge with links to further resources.
Community Wildlife Mapping, Somerset – example iNaturalistUK Project Buckland St Mary Parish
This Project Overview presentation was not used in the meeting but may be useful for those new to using projects. Further assistance is available in the projects help section on iNaturalistUK.
General Updates
Temporary limitations on places and taxon changes April 27-May 9 – due to City Nature Challenge event. As the event has grown in the UK so has the amount of observations being uploaded. This will have an impact as these observations flow through to iRecord and on to the NBN Atlas. Read more about data flow in the UK.
New Computer Vision Model Released
This is the first model update since July 2021. The iNaturalist website, mobile apps, and API are all now using this new model. Here’s what’s new and different with this change:
- It includes 55,000 taxa (up from 38,000)
- Hybrid taxa are excluded
- It’s more likely to suggest the correct taxon
Updates to the Mobile Apps – this is progressing with changes to Android and Apple. One improvement is the hope to use AR camera similar to that used in Seek. Not likely to be released before June.
GDPR – In the near future all users will be asked to confirm their email addresses and wont be able to log in without doing this. Take the time now to check your email address you are using is one you still access. Go to your profile to make any updates.
Observation Licences – The iNaturalist developers have received advice that the observation itself is not subject to needing a licence. Further discussions are ongoing and this could mean that default is changed to CC0 for example. Photos and sounds can still be on a licence of the users choice. Watch this space. Read more about licences on the iNaturalistUK blog.
Next meeting
If you have ideas or thoughts on discussion topics for future group meetings, please do let me know. We want this group to be of benefit to users so do share your ideas.
It was proposed that we have further meetings on a roughly quarterly basis. The next meeting is likely to take place in September 2022. Details will follow.
In the meantime, please do email any ideas and thoughts you have to inaturalistuk@nbn.org.uk