I’ll be starting to collect observational data on salamandra salamandra for a university project soon.
Our state has a local dataset that these observations will get added to but as far as I can tell that dataset doesn’t get added to GBIF. So it’s no as easily available for transregional use.
I would like to be able and add these observations to iNaturalist as well. I therefore was wondering if that would be an issue, since some researcher might use both datasets for a paper, ending up with duplicates.
I thought about using observation fields or so to show that the data is also contained in another dataset.
It’s the researcher’s responsibility to make sure they aren’t using duplicated observations. Any attempt you make to ensure that researchers don’t duplicate it is nice, but not necessary. I would probably put that in the observation description instead of an observation field, as the description is automatically imported while the observation field has to be selected by the researcher for import.
iNat is meant for personal observations with nature in the wild, so as long as you’re following that there shouldn’t be issues. You can make a note that the data was also submitted elsewhere, but I agree that the onus is on any future researchers to vet the data themselves.
Thank you everyone for the advice.
Since I’m just now starting to work in research, I don’t think I’m in the position to ask my state to make big changes like this. Maybe once I get to know people, I will asked and see if they gonna publish their dataset(s) to GBIF.
For now I will have to see how the actual surveys will work. If we just count and record individuals, I might take pictures for iNaturalist additionally and leave a note/observation field regarding the other dataset.