Something that might or might not be analogous to what you’re describing is the use of preserved museum specimens in a public collection. It’s not unusual for a researcher to use specimens from a museum which have been collected and deposited there by others and to acknowledge in a publication the institution for use of the material but not the individual collectors. I’ve had that happen to me, but didn’t consider it data theft. Once the specimens are in that collection, they are available for others to use … unless there is some existing understanding that the collector is using the material for their own project.
But it can also be a courtesy to credit the collector or even include them as a collaborator in a project if the circumstances allow,
Citing iNaturalist as a source, is similar to saying … Facebook or Google is a source.
The journal should have publishing / editorial guidelines requiring an actual source.
@jnstuart the museum specimen technically and legally belongs to the museum? Copyright for iNat photos belongs to the photographer / observer, not to iNat.
Yes, the museum “owns” the specimen once it is deposited there. But my understanding for iNat is that the photo is copyrighted but not necessarily the data associated with the photo. I can’t legally use someone’s iNat photo in my publication without their permission, but I can reference a record on iNat in my own publication without permission.
The iNaturalist database can be and is cited as a reference in publications.
For what it’s worth, several authors, including iNat users Greg Pauly and Jan Vendetti (I’m not sure if the other co-authors are iNat users) published a paper arguing that citizen scientists deserve co-authorship.
Just wondering … I am way out of my league here and apologize in advance for any errs on my part.
It seems you want to slow or limit the use of the data you collect until you have a chance to publish it yourself? I wonder if setting the locations as “Private” - just until you are satisfied you’ve had a fair chance at your own collections - would impede it being mined by other researchers?
I gather, this might kind of an extreme step. If that is a strategy that could work, it would be nice afterwards to go back and update the locations back to Open or Obscured.
yeah. that’s not practical with over 20,000 observations. I agree with the earlier answers that persons who collect data should be credited with such. Just because they can use the data without crediting doesn’t mean they should. I think eventually credible publications will start requiring it some degree. With papers that sources thousands of observations it won’t be practical for all individual observations, but if someone had 150 of the thousand, courtesy would dictate they should be cited as a source.
I intend to publish a paper based on the project Molluscan Mycophagy that I created and administer. A couple of power users have contributed a number of observations to the project and I have invited them to be authors. Thus far it has only been a presentation at the World Congress of Malacology, but hopefully I will have something before the end of the year is out.
I am curious if authorship as a reward will lead to more focused involvement by community scientists.
I didn’t really have a threshold, thus far it has been extended to the top three contributors, all of who have been keeping their eye out. I may invite others after I finish curating the observations.
I generally agree with the sentiment of others. However, I would say that if a single iNat observation (or perhaps a few) are worthy of publication on their own, then the observer would likely be worth of co-authorship. The observer would be expected to review and possibly contribute to a manuscript, as well as agree to everything.
jaykeller and I have an upcoming publication based on this single observation, and we cite the observation itself in the paper.
I appreciate that you do this. It seems that the scientific community, like most everyone else, are chasing ratings, i.e. they only want to be published in the “influential” journals, and disdain writing papers that would be more suitable for a quality niche journal. But for someone like me, with a scientific background but no institutional affiliation that would enable me to access grants and equipment, the existence of such niche journals is a godsend.
@royaltyler et al. As a recent example, I have a manuscript in review right now in which I studied over 3600 online images of the moth genus Petrophila in the research, the vast majority of which were from iNaturalist. While all of those images contributed incrementally to the substance of the research, I only mention the online repositories as my “sources”. HOWEVER, I give explicit credit to the photographers whose images populate the paper (which number about 14 images from 13 observers). Since the research is mine alone (at this point), it doesn’t seem appropriate to me to elevate observers/photographers to authorship status. Had I solicited a team of field assistants to go out and seek out the subject moths for documentation, that would perhaps raise their efforts to a level deserving co-authorship. At a still higher level of participation, for a previous paper on the moth genus Cisthene, Hugh McGuinness joined in on the research with gusto and contributed in very significant ways, thus he was a co-author with me. Again, all photographers were credited for the photos used in that article.