Two years of iSpot and the statistics are looking good!
The OPAL iSpot project
iSpot has been developed by The Open University as part of OPAL (Open Air Laboratories), which works to encourage a new generation of nature?lovers by getting people to explore, study, enjoy and protect their local environment, supported by the Big Lottery Fund.
Two years on
iSpot was launched in June 2009, so it has now had two full years of activity. At the end of July 2011 the headline statistics were:
• 13,321 registered users on iSpot (up from 7,960 in December 2010)
• 66,496 Observations posted on the site (up from 33,466)
• 82,068 Identifications suggested
• 248,597 Agreements given
One dataset from iSpot has already been collated by the recording scheme for shieldbugs and related species. This was done by Tristan Bantock in advance of the data download being available and it has now been uploaded to the NBN Gateway.
Why not get involved?
iSpot is aimed at helping anyone identify anything in nature.
Once you’ve registered, you can add an observation to the website and suggest an identification yourself or see if anyone else can identify it for you.
You can also help others by adding an identification to an existing observation, which you may like to do as your knowledge grows. Your reputation on the site will grow as people agree with you identifications.
A number of schemes and societies work with iSpot to help people learn about wildlife, and each has one or more representatives active on the site. These voluntary representatives help suggest identifications and provide advice, and also liaise with iSpot to publicise the activities of their scheme or society. The representatives are ‘badged’ with a logo that provides a link back to their website, and you can see these badges every time they are active on iSpot. See which schemes and societies are involved in iSpot.