Workflows and sequencing
Citizen scientist page3 asked an excellent question (or rather, 4 questions!) the other day:
First thing to know is that some of this is explained for you on the project home page (eyesonwild.com, or click 'Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild' on the top left of any of the classification screens). Underneath where it says 'Get Started', there is some explanatory text.
Underneath that blurb (highlighted by the red arrow in the screenshot above), there are currently two button options: Biodiversity Detective and Animal or Not. These are our two 'workflows', which is what Zooniverse calls the sequences of tasks that volunteers are asked to do. Biodiversity Detective was our original workflow, and the one that is the most important step in our sequence. It presents a volunteer with 1-3 pictures, then asks them to identify the specific wildlife species shown in the image, count the number of individuals, and answer some questions about behavior and offspring. Different numbers of independent classifications are needed to 'retire' (i.e. remove from the classification stream) different categories of pictures. Images of things like cars, people, vegetation without wildlife, and deer are all categories where folks tend to agree quickly and easily on what's in the picture. Those categories only require a couple of classifications to retire. Things that are more challenging - fisher, canids, birds, etc - require substantially more independent views to retire. You can read more on specific retirement rules in this recent blog post, and about the idea behind consensus classification and why it works here.
Animal or Not is a new workflow we added in Dec 2019 to address volunteer feedback about the vast number of vegetation-only images in the Biodiversity Detective workflow (we are listening! 😁 ). When we move new images to the Zooniverse now, they first go to Animal or Not, where volunteers simply click 'yes' or 'no' depending on whether they see non-human animals in the images or not. Only images that at least 3 people mark as 'yes' (i.e. they do contain wildlife rather than just humans, cars or plants) move to the Biodiversity Detective workflow. Animal or Not is also available through the Zooniverse app as a smartphone-friendly workflow. You can read more about that if you are interested in this blog post.
"Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild" is the umbrella project that contains these two workflows. Essentially, the two workflows work in sequence, as outlined in the flowchart below. Your classifications are useful and valued regardless of which workflow they are in! If you like the mindless task of just saying yes or no (sometimes that's a great thing to do early in the morning or late at night when your brain is fried, or when you are in a situation where the smartphone app is easy - like riding the bus to work or school, sitting around killing time, brushing your teeth, etc) or want to be the FIRST to see the newest images, your classifications on Animal or Not make it efficient for us to secondarily go through just the images with wildlife. If you prefer the challenge of identifying animals, or want to be able to provide more detailed information about how many individuals and what behavior you are seeing, your classifications on Biodiversity Detective give us the detailed information we need for our analysis. It's fine to switch between them as well! Both are easily accessible by clicking the appropriate button on the Eyes on the Wild home page. Up for an adventure? Clicking the 'classify' button in the top right of the project home page will randomly assign you to a workflow!
We are in the process of adding some additional tools including machine learning algorithms and AI to our project to continue to improve efficiency and make the best possible use of our volunteers' time! Stay tuned for more! We'll also be back shortly with some information about the updates we've recently made to the Biodiversity Detective workflow!
What is “Animal or Not”?Sometimes the research team is too deep inside the project to realize that the knowledge we haven't isn't shared by the volunteers! Particularly now that we've added new steps to our project sequence as well as more than one workflow, it's time for an update about How Things Work. :)
What is “Biodiversity Detective”?
How do you find them?
Are these different from “Eyes on the Wild” classifications?
First thing to know is that some of this is explained for you on the project home page (eyesonwild.com, or click 'Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild' on the top left of any of the classification screens). Underneath where it says 'Get Started', there is some explanatory text.
Underneath that blurb (highlighted by the red arrow in the screenshot above), there are currently two button options: Biodiversity Detective and Animal or Not. These are our two 'workflows', which is what Zooniverse calls the sequences of tasks that volunteers are asked to do. Biodiversity Detective was our original workflow, and the one that is the most important step in our sequence. It presents a volunteer with 1-3 pictures, then asks them to identify the specific wildlife species shown in the image, count the number of individuals, and answer some questions about behavior and offspring. Different numbers of independent classifications are needed to 'retire' (i.e. remove from the classification stream) different categories of pictures. Images of things like cars, people, vegetation without wildlife, and deer are all categories where folks tend to agree quickly and easily on what's in the picture. Those categories only require a couple of classifications to retire. Things that are more challenging - fisher, canids, birds, etc - require substantially more independent views to retire. You can read more on specific retirement rules in this recent blog post, and about the idea behind consensus classification and why it works here.
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| This is what the classification screen for the Biodiversity Detective workflow currently looks like. Don't forget to check out the Field Guide tab over on the right - lots of great resources are hiding there! |
Animal or Not is a new workflow we added in Dec 2019 to address volunteer feedback about the vast number of vegetation-only images in the Biodiversity Detective workflow (we are listening! 😁 ). When we move new images to the Zooniverse now, they first go to Animal or Not, where volunteers simply click 'yes' or 'no' depending on whether they see non-human animals in the images or not. Only images that at least 3 people mark as 'yes' (i.e. they do contain wildlife rather than just humans, cars or plants) move to the Biodiversity Detective workflow. Animal or Not is also available through the Zooniverse app as a smartphone-friendly workflow. You can read more about that if you are interested in this blog post.
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| This is what the classification screen for the Animal or Not workflow looks like on a browser. Note that you don't have give ANY information about the species, number, behavior, etc - just mark whether wildlife is present or absent. |
"Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild" is the umbrella project that contains these two workflows. Essentially, the two workflows work in sequence, as outlined in the flowchart below. Your classifications are useful and valued regardless of which workflow they are in! If you like the mindless task of just saying yes or no (sometimes that's a great thing to do early in the morning or late at night when your brain is fried, or when you are in a situation where the smartphone app is easy - like riding the bus to work or school, sitting around killing time, brushing your teeth, etc) or want to be the FIRST to see the newest images, your classifications on Animal or Not make it efficient for us to secondarily go through just the images with wildlife. If you prefer the challenge of identifying animals, or want to be able to provide more detailed information about how many individuals and what behavior you are seeing, your classifications on Biodiversity Detective give us the detailed information we need for our analysis. It's fine to switch between them as well! Both are easily accessible by clicking the appropriate button on the Eyes on the Wild home page. Up for an adventure? Clicking the 'classify' button in the top right of the project home page will randomly assign you to a workflow!
We are in the process of adding some additional tools including machine learning algorithms and AI to our project to continue to improve efficiency and make the best possible use of our volunteers' time! Stay tuned for more! We'll also be back shortly with some information about the updates we've recently made to the Biodiversity Detective workflow!
So I'm assuming since there are photos still available that the Biodiversity Stream is still up and running?
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