We are now importing records from iNaturalist into iRecord, in order to make them available to national recording schemes and local environmental records centres. iNaturalist records can be downloaded from iNaturalist itself, but the import process to iRecord makes them available for verification, links them to the UK Species Inventory, and to UK grid references and vice-counties.
For verification purposes, there are some differences in the information available for the iNat records, and the actions available to you as a verifier. Also, the records that arrive via iNaturalist may be different in character to the records you receive via other routes: they will all have photos, they may have been identified with the help of the iNat community and/or using the iNat automatic image recognition software; some records may be from relatively inepxerienced recorders (the identification assistance and web/app interfaces that iNat uses are very helpful for people who are new to biological recording and are often used for bioblitzes and other public-facing activities).
Consequently, we are presenting the iNat records on a separate verification page, so that you can switch between the main iRecord verification page and the iNaturalist verification as you wish.
The differences on the iNat verification page are:
- The verification grid is shaded green to make it clear that this is the iNat verification page, not the standard verification page
- It is not possible to contact iNat recorders directly from iRecord. This means that the query button is still available, and you can still add comments to a queried record, but the query and comments will not be passed on to the recorder. Neither can you email the recorder directly, unless you already have their email address and can paste it in. The text associated with the query button explains this.
- If you do wish to contact a recorder who is not in touch with you, the only way to do that is to register an account on the iNaturalist website, and contact the recorder from there. Each iNat record in iRecord has an additional "iNaturalist link" button (to the right of the verification buttons) that will open up the iNat observation into a new tab, and take you to the original observation on the iNat website.
- Because iNat users are not linked to iRecord accounts, we cannot display the "Recorder experience" details, and this tab is not available on the verification page.
- iNat recorders do not get notified of any verifications or redeteminations that you do (unless you choose to make them aware on the iNaturalist website itself).
- The iNat records will appear in any downloads that you do as part of your verification role (unless you choose to exclude them using the download filters).
Records are only imported to iRecord if they are from the UK (+ Isle of Man and Channel Islands), if they match the UK Species Inventory, if they have been given a record licnece that allows sharing, and if they have reached the "research grade" level of identification agreement on iNaturalist itself. Once verified on iRecord the record is 'locked' and will not get updated if any change is made to the identification on iNaturalist.
This process is aiming to make the iNaturalist records more easily available to those verifiers and recording schemes that wish to have access to them, but as always you are under no obligation to respond to these records. If anything about the iNat link to iRecord is unclear please contact us for further information.