Citizen Science Case Studies

The case studies below demonstrate the data journey for specific marine citizen science projects, covering their planning, collection, processing, preservation, sharing and reuse.

PlanPlanning section of Guidance

The Seabird Monitoring Programme

The Seabird Monitoring Programme (SMP) was initially planned by ornithologists at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) in consultation with nature experts. The project is funded jointly by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), in association with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and is supported by Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, NatureScot, and DAERA Northern Ireland.

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Tools & protocols

The protocols were developed early-on in 1995 and documented in the Seabird monitoring handbook for Britain and Ireland. The handbook compiles the survey and monitoring methods for breeding seabirds, with a specific protocol for each species.

Licensing & permissions

Some of the species that are surveyed are Schedule 1 species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which receive the highest level of legal protection. For this reason, surveyors planning to monitor these need to have a license if in close proximity, something which is considered when planning individual surveys. Most surveys are planned to be done from a distance so there is no/very little disturbance.

Verification & quality control

The initial surveys were recorded manually on paper forms, but this has now evolved quite a bit since then into an online system for data submissions, the SMP Online Portal, This includes a series of automatic checks to identify errors at an early stage. These checks were planned in addition to the manual check carried out by the national organiser. Using this system means that data are standardised as they are entered, but standardisation guidance is also listed in the handbook.

Sharing

The project aims to share data freely, so data are made freely available via the portal, with the data from the portal stored internally in their relational database and also following a planned data flow route that allows the archival and sharing of data with the NBN.

[The Seabird Monitoring Programme plan image] — British Trust for Ornithology

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