When creating a traditional project, the default option for project type is ‘normal’. However, you can change this setting to ‘assessment’, with the explanation that “Assessments are for collaborating on a set of species assessments, usually to gauge conservation importance.”
This is perhaps a naive question, but what does choosing assessment here actually do? I haven’t actually created a project with this setting yet (and maybe that’s my downfall, and all will be revealed when I do), but from what I can see, choosing that setting does not change any of the other settings or options in the project setup page. I’m also struggling to find any explanations or info in the help pages (the managing projects section of the help page merely repeats the above definition).
an assessment project allows you to add “assessments”. i’ve never used them myself, but an information popup next to the assessment header reads:
Taxon assessments are documents assessing the current status of a species, usually conservation status. For example, a regional conservation organization might use them to organize information and solicit feedback about the status of several threatened taxa in the region.
here’s a sample of actual assessments recorded in the system:
structurally, an assessment looks to me like a journal post associated with a specific taxon that can be organized in multiple sections. it looks like a lot of the older assessments share a common structure. so it’s possible that there was some mechanism in the past that automatically gathered information for a basic assessment, given a taxon. (i’m guessing that that mechanism no longer exists, since there are very few new assessments since about Nov 2016, and since those new assessments seem to have more varied and simpler structures.)
If you’re interested in Peruvian amphibians, we need your help. Post your observations and provide feedback on the posted draft IUCN Red List assessments which are under review. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is an essential tool for conservationists, researchers, policy makers and donors alike. But with roughly one amphibian species described every two days, keeping the Red List up to date for amphibians is a daunting challenge. This forum represents a collaboration between the IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group and iNaturalist.org to accelerate the assessment process by making draft assessments available to the public for comment. Please join the effort by contributing comments and observations to increase our knowledge about Peruvian amphibians.
i went through all the “nearby” projects in my area set up as assessment projects (about 40), and none of them actually had any assessments, but here are screenshots of a dummy assessment i made on a dummy project, just for reference:
