Participant observation #1
Does joining a group increase the number of "research grade" observations (peer-reviewed observations) for the observations relevant to the group?
I joined the "Flora von Deutschland" (Flora of Germany) group. As of 26. Mai 2016, I have contributed 111 observations to the group. Out of these, 55 have been promoted to "research grade".
I have also contributed 28 observations not in a group. Out of these, 8 have been promoted to "research grade".
Group Research grade % (n) Non-research grade % (n) Flora von Deutschland 50% (55) 50% (56) No group 29% (8) 71% (20) Total 45% (63) 55% (76)
Amended:
There are of course many other possibilities why this is so, e.g. I'm more familiar with the flora of where I live than of where I happen to spend my holidays. So this is still a hunch which requires some more looking into.
Comments
Good observation -- with projects, the amount of curation dictates how many will be reviewed and made research grade. For instance, in the "Herps of Texas" group, there are multiple curators, and a large majority of the observations get research grade.
Thanks for pointing out the importance of curators. I'm fairly new to this site and I just got promoted to curator. I'll try not to mess up!
Welcome to iNaturalist! It's a phenomenal tool -- in my opinion, it's the most valuable tool for the 'naturalists of tomorrow.' It's a wonderful social network for nature enthusiasts and biologists as well -- so be sure to comment on observations/journals/projects -- that's all part of the process.
Curation and management of projects is crucially important. I see so many projects that lay dormant without proper curation. What is proper curation? Well, it's simply looking at the observations and chiming in on the ID's and adding observations to the project. It's time consuming, but it's worth the time investment. Also, I tend to learn a lot more when I curate a project!
If you have any other questions, be sure to ask!
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