But every day, at least 8 new people register in iSpot (yesterday there were 12) . Few of them get beyond registering.
Some add their first Observation and never return. Some make their first Observation and hear NOTHING from us
We rarely welcome them - a few of us do but we miss a good number
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There needs to be a proper welcome package. A personal message by email, some encouragement to try their hand and to open their tracker IMMEDIATELY to see responses.
Obviously there are two levels, registrants and those who post their first Observation. The latter may have been sitting on āmembershipā for months or years,
The most recent registrant/poster is below is (as I write) and has already added an Observation. Many of them slip through and most of them LEAVE
I personally would have found something like this really useful, although I was welcomed via comments which was lovely. However, some initial info about navigating the site, a few dos and donāts etc, like a kind of āhow to get the most out of ispotā pack would have been really helpful.
Thanks Luisa
there were 13 new registrants yesterday (from 80672 to 80685), some have posted Observations
Gillian was the first to register today (Oct 1st)
It is actually quite intimidating doing your first observation, and I didnāt put in an identification on the first one. Although I was reasonably certain I knew what it was. The identification came quickly, and a friendly comment on helping to ID. However, with one observation it was easy to just check it up.
The tracker is the most useful tool, but when I saw the tab had no idea what was being tracked. When you realise that it is feedback on your observations, that makes all the difference. It would be useful if it were fired up automatically.
I donāt think in general people appreciate just how hard it is to identify something from a photograph. I often look at observations of things that I am familiar with, but canāt come to a conclusion because a key feature is not present on the image. I still go back and re-photo because I have missed the most important feature. It might help in comments if it were explained why something was hard to identify and what would help. That this does go on quite a lot, but maybe new users need extra nurturing.
One of the most positive aspects of the site is that mistakes in identification are not ridiculed, and it should be emphasised that it is a process, and that a final identification could take a few goes. I will probably come back to this later.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything Gulvain has said, particularly the intimidating bit. I guess the thing is, you donāt know what you donāt know, and often the seemingly obvious can be anything but. So again, as Gulvain has said, a bit of nurturing of new users would be good. I wondered if there was some way of automatically highlighting on the site if itās someoneās first post so people can say hi or welcome etc even if they canāt help with the ID? (this possibly already exists but Iām just not aware of it - Iām not particularly IT savvy which doesnāt help!). Equally, it can be a bit disheartening if, for whatever reason, there is no interaction with your post. Although Iām not sure what can be done about this as itās obviously resource intensive to check every post. I think a key thing is to try and nurture that sense of the site being a community and that we are there to help each other. So yes, people will help and engage with your posts, but in return you will be expected to do the same with theirs. Obviously with IDs this will depend on peopleās level of knowledge but you can still be supportive in other ways, eg Iāll sometimes comment about someoneās photos even if I canāt help with the ID.
Lots more to say but this is turning onto war and peace ! So Iāll just finish by saying that I adore ispot - the knowledge of some users is truly awe inspiring and I learn multiple new things every day - so thanks to everyone involved.
I am now going to agree with Luisa. Even regular users need nurturing, and I generally try to reply to comments or acknowledge them, just to indicate I have read what they have gone to the trouble of writing. The agreements are also important indication that somebody has looked hard enough at your observation to agree.
It would be helpful especially for new users if there was text that appears if you hover over the buttons.
I am not sure how easily it can be done based on the fact that the site has evolved around software that was originally written when the internet was much slower.
This has been discussed before, and I went as far as a first draft of a āwelcomeā e-mail. It probably wasnāt very good, and it came to naught.
Even when it is working reasonably well, iSpot is daunting. I also realised, during a brief period of inactivity, how quickly one begins to feel like an āoutsiderā.
It should be said that most of the current newcomers are adding IDās as part of a course and once completed they will disappear. User slippage has always been an issue. I have been active on iSpot for 11 years and so many users have come and gone. History dictates that the majority of users today will not be here in 12 months.
Hereās the thing. There are many different people who come to iSpot.
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Some of them are students paying to do modules with the OU (a Higher Education establishment) which provides this ispot free to us.
I remember being a student; there wasnāt time to do everything that seemed interesting. Have a look at the S295 to see what I mean.
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Others could be working in (or retired from) the Biology/consevation sector. They often share their expertise but may have other committments.
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Many could come as interested observers or to ask for particular help with an ID.
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A welcome to new members on their early posts can be encouraging; some of us have an interest & time to do this, others of us donāt. Some āwelcomesā
see newcomers stay while others donāt.
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Luisa and Gulvain have given some excellent feedback here so letās do what we can to help.
I enjoy iSpot; but itās not everyoneās cup of tea.
JoC, I think you are right it is a mixture of issues. The help/introduction could be better but when it comes down to it students have to do many different things and some simply tick the box of using ispot and move on. Students are given detailed instructions of how to use iSpot.
This was also the case on the precursor to iSpot which I ran for many years just for students, some thought it was the best part of the course and others just did the activity and moved on to other parts of the course which they preferred more.
In the past I have tried making sure every student got either a comment or an ID or both and reminded them repeatedly on their own course forum at the OU to check their iSpot tracker (as have course managers) and this has helped to some extent but still students have many other things on their mind.
Suspect any encouraging words they see on iSpot would help them to come back and use the site again.
I agree with a lot of the above. I think that a welcome message to new registrees (if thatās a word) in non in-house language should be the first step. We need to encourage people to try submitting observations and explain why it matters. I donāt think that all the (on-going) technical issues help. Yesterday I was still having trouble uploading quite small photos.
One of the big strengths of iSpot in my view is the non-judgemental attitude that prevails. When you get something wrong, you donāt get messages saying what a stupid mistake youāve made - and as I make a lot, that is something I really appreciate.
I think that (in the UK at least) more effort could be made to get people to submit their sightings, once agreed, to iRecord (or equivalent) so that they end up on the national database. Then they really are contributing to conservation.
Iād like to see Amadanās draft email. Perhaps a few of us could give some feedback on it. Perhaps another thread?!
Interesting seeing these words as yesterday one of the ispotters made a slight error and got into a panic. Can just imagine what would have happened if there had not been real people to deal with the issue and instead one of the impenetrable computer only systems. Would have caused loads more stress to that person and I suspect lots of the other users of the system. So being helpful and nice are some of the things humans can do especially when it is a new person joining.
On the submission to national database front, the iSpot data will hopefully get there fairly soon, it was delayed over the summer as I had found a small error in a test submission and it has been taking a long time to track down.
Thanks, miked.
Thatās interesting to hear. Will users have the option for their observations not to be submitted to the national database? I prefer to do my own submissions so that I can keep track of them.
Last time I spoke to NBN I think they were about to improve their methods of finding and dealing with duplicates etc. There is already some iSpot data on NBN which has arrived via many different routes, this is one of the reasons I was checking things over the summer.
Hi Mike,
Currently there are several posts by several students on the S925 course.
It would be useful for those of us welcoming and offering suggestions if we knew what criteria they have been given for their iSpot task(s).
! So Iāll just finish by saying that I adore ispot - the knowledge of some users is truly awe inspiring and I learn multiple new things every day - so thanks to everyone involved.