I'm not a naturalist but I am someone who enjoys photography and especially photographing nature. I like being a citizen scientist and enjoy the hunter/gathering part of iRecord, it appeals to the innate collector in me. It's also fun processing my images in software but entering multiple records can be a bit of a chore. I've tried to streamline my workflow as much as possible but it's still inefficient and frustrating.
The most frustrating part of entering records for me is the location bit. Entering the name of the location and pinpointing it on the map is more convoluted and time consuming than it needs to be. The information is already contained within the image's EXIF data so why do we need to enter it manually?
Once I've processed my images my current workflow is:
- Determine an image's location. Windows' default "Photos" app shows some basic file info but doesn't extract GPS data so I have to open the image in Firefox and use the "xIFr" extension to get the GPS coordinates.
- The "enter records" page doesn't recognise GPS coordinates (I normally enter my records at butterflyrecording.org) so I copy and paste them individually into gridreferencefinder.com which converts them to a British National Grid reference.
- I then copy and paste the grid reference into the "enter records" page.
- I manually confirm the position on the map (that is now automatically zoomed in to the correct location).
- I then manually input the location name.
All very time consuming and involves flicking between multiple tabs, if anyone has a more efficient workflow then I'd be very happy to hear about it.
Why can't we just have a button next to an uploaded image that automatically extracts the GPS data from the image, converts it to a National Grid reference and pinpoints that location on the map when it's clicked? I can understand iRecord wanting to use a National Grid reference but that's a British thing, most images are going to be produced on devices that use GPS location data.
Why can't the location input be populated automatically? If you put a rough location into the location search box it will offer a list of likely locations. If I click a location on openstreetmap.org then a sidebar will show the name, suburb, city, region, county etc of that location, so the data is available in an API somewhere.
Make it as streamlined and painless as possible for us to enter records and it will encourage people to do so.
When taking photographs in the field I always check maps first, as the GPS location is very often a few kilometres wrong. I wouldn't expect most people to realise this. However, most of the photos are taken at home, from collected specimens, so I will always enter the location data separately.
As to GPS (latitude/longitude) vs grid reference, it is immaterial when recording. The two can be interchanged so record whatever is easier and let the software do the work. When it comes to extracting and displaying the data it is different. All UK data recording is organised using around grid references - if you are recording butterflies via the Scheme then all the data and recording effort assumes that we all use GR. Ultimately iRecord is there for scientific purposes and they must take priority.