What is the best way to set up a new project for a landcare group? Do we create an account for the group, using a group email address, and then set up a collection project filtering for the geographical area covered by the group? The group members include landholders who may want to use private location for some or all species on their own property. There are also endangered species that we would want to use obscured locations. I gather once the project is set up the observations should be recorded by individuals who have joined the project, not by the group account? And anyone could actually join the project, even if they are not actually a member of the landcare group (we would not want to have to add users manually). But if a user makes the location of a sighting private, it would not be visible to anyone except that user? It seems it would be difficult to use this as a record of vulnerable species that the group could refer to - for example if there was a threat of development affecting the area they are located in. Also if a user deleted their account those records would be lost?
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if you intend to have individual users contribute records from their own accounts, there is no need to create a group account, it would serve no purpose. The only reason you would create a group account was if you were intending to submit records from it.
If a user sets the geoprivacy of one of their records to private, all location information is removed from public view, even the continent. So yes, the location would not be visible to anyone else (aside from other users the observer has ‘trusted’). If you set up a collection project using a spatial filter then you would need each observer to trust the project admins with their true coordinates; otherwise any private records will not be collected by the project.
Similarly, if your focal place is relatively small, any obscured records will be ‘bounced out’ and lost from the project unless (as above) these users trust the project admins with their true coordinates.
This is very much correct, and one reason why I personally recommend against using ‘private’ except for in extreme circumstances. Generally speaking, setting a record to ‘obscured’ is going to be sufficient in most cases with respect to maintaining privacy, reducing risk of eg collection, etc.
Yes, if a user decides to delete their account, their records will all be deleted also.
More details regarding your specific situation would help, but from your post, it seems to me that a traditional project may be a good fit for your situation. It would require the extra step of users having to manually add each relevant record to the project, but it would mean that users could set any of their records to obscured or private, and they wouldn’t be lost from the project. Otherwise, a collection project is fine, but you would have to ensure each user trusts the project admin with their coordinates when joining the project.
OK so if we set up a traditional project, we could set it up using a landcare group email address but then the owner of that email address (eg the current secretary or membership officer) would have to keep track of users who want to join the project? Actually it probably wouldn’t be a huge number of people, it is just that it’s always preferable to avoid adding extra tasks to committee members who are mostly volunteers. But I like the idea of being able to selectively add records to the project, and we might only get the species that are of particular interest.
is there a particular reason you can’t have someone with a pre-existing iNat account set it up and serve as the project admin? (eg yourself) I’m just trying to understand why a new, group account needs to be set up
definitely agree. That’s the trade-off to weigh up vs being able to capture everything you want
i would do this. especially if group membership is likely to change over time, it’s probably going to be easiest to have your group’s executive team control a group account. i would use it for property definition, project definition, project journal posts, and also to receive and send private messages on behalf of the group.
generally this is true. however, there are special tasks where some minimum number of observations or identifications are required. so you may need to make observations or identifications in the group account in order to even set up a project, for example.
If you want a project that contains only a particular list of species, you can name them in the project criteria and get ONLY those species.
I agree with the advice given here (use an individual account to set it up). People can opt in to make locations public just to the group.
You look to be located in Yass, do you know anyone in the Central Tablelands Landcare groups? Cowra is pretty active and friendly I’ve heard. They seem to have a project already. It might be useful to ask them what’s worked and hasn’t worked for their iNat project.
I’d definitely lean toward pisum’s suggestion of creating a dedicated group account controlled by the executive team, even if it adds one initial setup task. That way, the project ownership is stable regardless of who is currently volunteering as secretary or membership officer, which is huge for a volunteer group’s longevity.
And rainnature’s advice is golden: reaching out to an active neighboring group, like Cowra, to learn from their experience will save you so much trial and error! Good luck getting it set up!
Yes, I will talk to the Cowra group. And yes, the membership of the group will change over time, as will the committee. But I think we could have an email address that is owned by the landcare group but can be assigned to whoever wants to be the admin, doesn’t have to be an officer.
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