I note that the OU OpenLearn course “iSpot: sharing nature” is to be discontinued and deleted from OpenLearn on 20 December 2020. The reason given is “ongoing content review”. I hope this isn’t the beginning of the end for iSpot.
Where did you read that? We could consider a lobby if we have the info.
The actual wording is
" As part of a review of content, this course will be deleted from OpenLearn on 4 December 2020. It has been replaced by the new course Citizen science and global biodiversity"
basically the very short ispot only course has been replaced by a larger course covering a wider range of topics to do with biodiversity, it includes ispot but other citizen science systems too. I suspect much of what was in the short course is now in the larger course and there are other ispot related things in there too including an ispotter showing how to do detailed identifications with microscope.
It has nothing to do with future of ispot other than wanting to use ispot more in courses.
Sorry, Mike, but that’s not in the email I received from OpenLearn …
Dear ,
You are receiving this email because you are enrolled on the free OpenLearn course iSpot: sharing nature .
As part of OpenLearn’s ongoing content review, this course will be deleted from the site on Tuesday 8th December 2020 . Once the course has been deleted you will no longer be able to access it. You may want to take the following actions, depending on whether you have completed the course.
If you have already completed the course and earned your free statement of participation, it will continue to be available in your profile, but we do recommend that you download it now so that you have a copy for your records. Here’s how to download your statement:
- Sign in to OpenLearn
- Click on ‘My OpenLearn Profile’
- Locate the course in the ‘My achievements’ section
- Click the ‘Download’ link.
If you have not yet finished the course and wish to do so, you need to complete it before course access closes on Tuesday 8th December 2020 . Alternatively you may like to view more Citizen science and global biodiversity .
Best wishes,
The OpenLearn Team
Slightly more precisely here https://www.open.edu/openlearn/nature-environment/natural-history/ispot-sharing-nature/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab
Only a dictionary
but the new CoL interface is up and easy to use
This is quite exciting. I believe that the global community here uses the COL dictionary, and look forward to the time when this new version, COL3, is in use.
we are working on the UK one first but eventually hope to move global to same version that GBIF uses which will be close to COL
It still doesn’t appear to have seaweeds, if you look up Laminaria or Fucus
Yes the outlook for ‘holiday posts’ of seaweeds and freshwater algae is BLEAK.
Protist. Rhodophyta (red…in Plants)
Algae. Chlorophyta (green) and Phaeophyceae (brown) are all incomplete.
Some reach to Genus, never beyond, most only to Family.
This means we have to Locate Observations in the UK and move them to Global - quite a laugh.
Back to Encyclopaedia Britannica or on to Wiki