Private Spots - A new Feature on the SPOTTERON Citizen Science Platform

Monday, 19 October 2020 19:32

In many Citizen Science and community engagement projects, participants may be reluctant to enter any data that may be sensitive, either, e.g. because of contributing an endangered species or for not wanting to share the location of their private garden.

Enhanced Privacy in Citizen Science Apps

For these kinds of observations, we have created a new feature which allows users to choose if they want to:

  • share the observation publicly as before,
  • hide the map coordinates but keep the contribution visible in the spot lists so that others can interact,
  • or to hide the spot entirely from the public and provide it just for the project's admins and moderators only.

The interface is present just above the SAVE / QUEUE Buttons.

Example Screenshots in-App:

SPOTTERON PrivateSpots inBCBApp

In the Data Administration Interface, you can find a new column in the Spot List. Under "Privacy" the status of a spot is noted with three icons:
* Eye: Spot is public
* Map: Spot is hidden in the map but visible in lists
* Eye crossed out: Spot is hidden and only visible to admins and moderators

The user can always see their own spots and contributions, so you can also get in contact with her or him via the comment function or like the spot as an admin/moderator.

Screenshot from Data Administration Interface:

 SPOTTERON PrivateSpots Admin States

With this new amazing feature, observations in sensitive areas (e.g. a user's home) or sensitive data (e.g. endangered species) are addressed and can be contributed to your project without any issues.

The new Private Post feature was developed with the kind support of the Big City Birds project and is, like all features on the SPOTTERON platform, available free of charge for all other projects!
Would like like to use this new feature in you your Citizen Science app?
You can find all our contact details here.

Projects & Apps open for Co-Use on SPOTTERON

App Icon
Social initiative Data Collection App
SPOTTERON

ArtSpots is a community-built art atlas. Through the App, people interested in various art forms like street art, historical or contemporary art, photography, architecture, and more can put their art observations on the map and discover art spots in their city or while travelling. The art community in the App allows exchanging with other like-minded people and contributing to a worldwide art collection.
Learn more about
ArtSpots
App Icon
Horizon Europe Citizen Science App

With the COSEA App, Citizen Scientists can observe marine environments, document coastal habitats or species, and report on pollution, infrastructure and the blue economy. Their contributions on the map and activity in the app will help scientists better understand the impacts and drivers of marine factors to protect and foster a healthy relationship between humans and seas.

Learn more about
COSEA | Collaboration for Effective Sea Action
App Icon
Environmental Citizen Science, Data Collection App
SPOTTERON

NatureSpots is a non-commercial and free project to discover nature together. In the app, nature photos and sightings of animals, plants or mushrooms can be shared with the community on the map. The app is a new initiative for observing nature and taking part is very simple and straightforward. The app is free of advertising, does not track users and takes digital privacy seriously.

Learn more about
NatureSpots
App Icon
Social initiative Community Engagement App
SPOTTERON

The new citizen participation uses "Citizen Science" in their hometown and nationwide to get User's feedback on places. As a result, citizens are empowered to become active in a city worth living in to collect and share data themselves and to interact with scientists. This enables them to recognize the consequences of sealing, heat, water shortages, and a lack of biodiversity, and generally, how places in their own environment affect us all.

Learn more about
CIVO Citizen Voice
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Horizon 2020 Invasive Species Monitoring App

The IPM-Popillia Horizon 2020 project aims to address the challenge of a new risk to plant health in Europe's agriculture and food safety: the invasion of the Japanese Beetle, Popillia japonica. This invasive species was introduced accidentally to mainland Europe in 2014 and can quickly spread by transportation and trade. As a species with a wide range of feeding plants, P. japonica threatens the entire agricultural sector, urban landscapes, and biodiversity in invaded areas.

Learn more about
IPM Popillia | Integrated Pest Management of the Japanese Beetle
App Icon
Environmental Community Engagement App

Fridays for Future see itself as a horizontal, grassroots grassroots movement that acts apolitically and refers to science for the facts. To engage the global population more, this app was developed using SPOTTERON. The aim is to find out how the population perceives the climate crisis and which positive and negative emotions are associated with specific topics related to biodiversity and climate crisis.

Learn more about
FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE - Climate App

Are you interested in co-using existing Apps? Get in Contact!

Get in contact for co-use here

 

 

Short News

  • New study from BiciZen project: "BiciZen: Lessons in the Development of a Crowdsourcing Mobile App to Make Cities More Bikeable" published in Journal of Participatory Research Methods. More studies available under the publication page here.

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  • Roadkill project has made wonderful short videos for the citizen scientists! The videos include the Roadkill App functions regarding how to confirm & comment on the spots and how to best take the photos for the project. The videos (in German) are available in the "Österreich forscht" blog here. 

    in Shortnews

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