Creating a project with less than 50 observations

[emily1010]

I was under the impression you needed 50 observations to create a project. I only have 36, but I wanted to test it out and see if I could make a project. It appears I was able to create a project with only 36 observations.

Is there a glitch? Why would I be able to create a project? I want to make sure I understand because I am hoping to work with teachers on some curriculum. I want to practice uploading data to a project prior to finalizing my curriculum so I am better able to prepare the teachers.

Thanks!

[bouteloua]

Hi @emily1010 - looks like you’ve created a “collection” project. No restrictions - anyone can create those. The 50 verifiable observation requirement applies to “traditional” projects. More details about the differences between the two here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/managing-projects#traditional (and, just in case you haven’t stumbled upon it yet, here’s the Teacher’s Guide! https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/teacher’s+guide)

[emily1010]

@bouteloua

https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/managing-projects#traditional

For a Collection Project can I specify a location at a smaller scale than just my city? I would like to specify my boundaries to be around a specific neighborhood.

Thanks for your help!

[bouteloua]

Yes, definitely, but that 50 verifiable observations minimum also applies to creating new places. I did a quick check and it doesn’t look like anyone has already added Woodland as a place in the database. So you’d need to go out and create a few more observations or dig through some old photos to add to iNat!

Once you’ve added the 50 verifiable observations, you can go to https://www.inaturalist.org/places and a button to create a new place will appear. There is sometimes a short lag period. Verifiable means “Needs ID” or “'Research Grade” observations, and excludes “Casual” observations. You can track your number of verifiable observations here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=grid&user_id=emily1010

After you create the new place, you can then edit your collection project to specify Woodland instead of all of Duluth. (also neat! I lived in Duluth for 10 years and my family’s still up there. :)