Maximizing the value of your iNat observations
Hi, everyone, thanks for your ongoing efforts to help document the unique biodiversity of Martha's Vineyard! I'd like to let you know about a pending improvement on our MV Atlas of Life (MVAL) website (mval.biodiversityworksmv.org) and to offer a suggestion for how you can make sure your iNaturalist observations are as useful as possible.
With the help of our partners at the Vermont Atlas of Life, we'll soon be installing a "data explorer" add-on to the MVAL website. This will basically be a user-friendly, geographically specific portal for exploring Vineyard data on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). GBIF compiles records from a wide range of sources, including "Research Grade" iNaturalist observations, making those records available for free to researchers anywhere in the world. The data explorer, once installed, will make it easy to search GBIF for Vineyard records from any source (iNat, eBird, uploaded data sets from researchers, etc.). As such, it will complement and extend the checklists we have posted on the MVAL website, and your "Research Grade" iNat observations will automatically be included IF YOUR PHOTOS AND SOUND RECORDINGS HAVE A TYPE OF "CREATIVE COMMONS" LICENSE THAT GBIF IS CONFIGURED TO ACCEPT.
How you license your material in iNat is of course entirely up to you. But if you would like to be sure that your observations get swept into GBIF, it is easy to verify the license type currently applied to your material and to change the license type, if necessary, to one that GBIF will accept. The link below will take you to a document explaining the process and giving more information; I'd urge you to look at the document, follow its instructions for checking your "creative commons" license types, and hopefully make certain that your observations are available to everyone through GBIF:
More information on the data explorer will be shared here, on the MVAL site, and through BiodiversityWorks eNews as we get closer to implementing this change, which will represent a huge increase in the functionality of the MVAL site. Verifying your default license types now will ensure that your observations are already in GBIF when the data explorer goes live.
Many thanks!
-- Matt
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