Getting to Research Grade or Casual Status

In theory, every observation that's posted to iNaturalist should be able to be sorted into Research Grade or Casual eventually. In practice, that's hard to accomplish, for several reasons: There simply aren't enough identifiers who know the more difficult taxa like graminoids, green algae, and mosses. There simply aren't enough identifiers, period, to keep up with the flood of new observations coming in all the time (oh, the perils of iNat's success!). There's an understandable caution on the part of even highly experienced identifiers to make use of the "As Good As It Can Be" designation in the Data Quality Assessment. Many observers (I'm sure I'm among them) don't include the necessary characters for identification down to the species level on every observation. And there are probably other reasons I'm not remembering right now (like the limited number of hours in the day, come to think of it). Nonetheless, we persevere.

(An aside: If all this talk of Research Grade, Casual, Data Quality Assessment, etc., is new to you, please go read through iNaturalist's help documents on the topic, here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started and here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#identification . If you're still confused, don't feel stupid; there's quite a learning curve to iNat - please feel free to ask questions.)

In this post, I wanted to write about some of the details of Research Grade and Casual status, at least the details I know about. Please add comments about anything I've missed or mis-interpreted.

Research Grade
Here's the simplest way Research Grade works: An observer posts a good photo of, say, Queen Anne's Lace and identifies it as Queen Anne's Lace. An identifier comes along and agrees with the ID. The observation is now Research Grade as Queen Anne's Lace. I don't have any good way to measure how many plant observations are as simple as this, but my wild guess would be somewhere around half of all plant observations in New England and New York. At the beginning of our ID marathon, I'll post a link to all the plant observations in our region that are already at species level; if an identifier agrees - hooray! We've cleared an observation out of the giant Needs ID pile!

But life and iNat are not always that simple. Here are some other ways an observation can get to Research Grade:

The original observer might not ID their observation at all (iNat calls these Unknowns) or they might ID it as Plants or Dicots. Then it will take at least two identifiers to agree on a species ID to get it to Research Grade. You might be surprised at how often this scenario occurs; I think maybe new iNat users don't know to add an initial ID or, even more likely, they don't know what species they've photographed and are hoping iNat can help out.

Research Grade can actually apply to observations above species level, taxonomically speaking, as long as there's agreement at the sub-family level or below. For example, if I photograph a Sphagnum from three feet away (because I don't want to get my feet wet!) and someone agrees with my ID as Sphagnum, then if I or anyone else clicks the "As Good As It Can Be" button in the Data Quality Assessment, the observation goes to Research Grade at the genus level. I suppose that technically a real expert could ID the observation to some section of Sphagnum, but I'm perfectly happy leaving many of my Sphagnum observations at the genus level (unless I collect a specimen, for example). Now, I tend to be slightly ruthless in using this method, but if an observer makes a comment objecting to my applying the "As Good As It Can Be" label to their observation, I will quite happily un-click that button. Some of the situations in which I feel comfortable using this way to get observations to Research Grade are Sambucus (with no flowers, fruit, winter flower buds of Red-berried Elder, or pith color); Vincetoxicum (with no flowers); Oxalis (the yellow ones, with no flowers or fruit); and many Rubus, Crataegus, Viola, Sisyrinchium, etc. (with no flowers, fruit, or distinctive leaves).

This second path to Research Grade needs to be used cautiously and with lots of attention paid to field guides and your iNat notifications, but I think it's the best way to get many observations out of Needs ID and into Research Grade. Remember, just because an observation is Research Grade doesn't mean it can't be found again on iNaturalist; it will still be there for future corrections if, say, the taxonomy changes or some expert determines there really are easily distinguished characters that differentiate among look-alike species.

Casual
Casual is iNaturalist's label for a wide range of kinds of observations that can't make it to Research Grade. For example, if an observation has no date or location or photo/recording, it is automatically labeled as Casual by iNaturalist upon uploading.

Another frequent reason for an observation to become Casual is if the plant that's observed is cultivated. Many times, a new observer may not understand the need for them to mark their houseplant or garden plant as cultivated when they upload a photo, or perhaps they don't even know how to tell what's wild and what's cultivated (don't laugh; I ran into this frequently myself in Australia where many parks are planted with natives, in quite natural arrangements). So if an identifier finds an observation of a cultivated plant, they should ID it to the best of their ability (even if that's just Dicot) and mark it as cultivated.

In addition, iNaturalist will automatically mark as cultivated an observation where at least 80% of the observations of that species in the vicinity have been marked as cultivated. For example, I've noticed that Kousa Dogwoods in the Boston area are automatically labeled cultivated, once they are identified to the species level. (By the way, this automatic labeling can be reversed if the observer or an identifier marks the observation as wild in the Data Quality Assessment, so if you observe a plant like hostas seeding themselves into a natural area, you should leave a note to that effect on your observation and mark it wild in the DQA.)

Additionally, there are those plant observations that can't be identified below the family level. For example, sometimes an observer will post a lovely scenic shot of a distant mountain (and often they forget to provide an initial ID as well). The diligent identifier will see that there are, say, both deciduous and coniferous trees on that mountain, so they ID the observation as Vascular Plants. Another identifier comes along and agrees with that ID - AND they click the "As Good As It Can Be" button. The observation becomes Casual. This path to Casual also works for those very fuzzy photos where Dicot or even just Plants are as good as it's ever going to get.

Sometimes observers add photos of more than one species to one observation. Here, it's best to comment, saying the observer should break up the observation into separate species (I use this language: Hi! Your observation includes photos of multiple species. In iNaturalist, each observation should show one species. Could you split them up, so each species is its own observation? Here’s a tutorial showing how to do this: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-fix-your-observation-with-photos-of-multiple-species/15096 Thanks!). While waiting to see if the observer responds (I usually give them a month), the identifier can ID the observation down to the lowest level that covers all of the photos. If the observer never responds, which is often the case, another identifier can then agree with the first ID and mark the "As Good As It Can Be" button, sending the observation to Casual.

I hope this wordy post helps you navigate the bristly thickets of Research Grade and Casual on iNat. If not - and especially if I've made a mistake! - please comment or ask questions.

Posted on February 21, 2024 01:28 PM by lynnharper