iRecord and iNaturalist

Just use iRecord. iNat records are poor, hence CEH have just sent a questionnaire to iRecord verifiers regarding iNat and its deficiencies. I'm fed up of iNat records with location details Derbyshire Uk, Grid reference SK.  I know another national scheme recorder who stated recently that he ignores most iNat records unless its a species of note.  The hours I spend chasing queries on iNat records and only about 20% ever respond.  
I thought it was just some of us in the UK that had issues with iNat and that in mainland Europe they use it more... but after discussion this morning with a national scheme coordinator in France it seems he too doesn't use iNat records and encourages everyone to use their own system which then feeds into the French equivalent of the NBN.
 

Hi

As far as I know (and I'm far from certain) there is currently no way to link your two accounts.

What do you record, why aren't your records on iNaturalist research grade and how many are there? It's possible you could ask iRecord users with an iNaturalist account to help bump your records up to research grade although records on iNaturalist tend to reach research grade pretty quickly if they have good quality images unless they're niche interests.

If you do go down the route of manually migrating your records then iRecord has a way of uploading records via spreadsheet which might make it a bit easier. You would need to delete your records on iNaturalist though to avoid duplication in case any of them later reached research grade. It sound like it could be quite a task.

Mesh

Thanks Mesh. I record anything of note in my garden and local area (stag beetles, orchids etc.) and I have a garden pond so I have newt records which could be very useful for LERCs. I also put up my bat, dormouse, and GCN license records. I'll look into the spreadsheet upload, thanks for suggesting it!

I agree with Jim. The quality of iNaturalist records coming through is rubbish - no sites or locations, no useful grid references, silly recorder names. I just ignore them now. USE IRECORD

I agree with the deficiencies in iNaturalist records that are imported into iRecord. 

Today, as a Verification Assistant, I received a Peacock butterfly record to verify from iNaturalist. The location description is wrong for the grid reference & the Peacock caterpillar is not recorded at the correct life stage, i.e. larval not adult.

There is no email address provided to contact the recorder to amend/correct any iNaturalist record information before verification

I'm the researcher behind the aforementioned project looking at the data quality of iNaturalist records imported into iRecord. All going to plan I should be able to share my key findings before the end of the year (and then fingers crossed get a proper paper published after that). General conclusions so far are really interesting; without giving away any spoilers, iNaturalist data does indeed have some considerable limitations in regards to data quality, but the issues most people perceive to be the greatest are often among the most minor problems in reality. Watch this space.

Julia

You can click the iNat link on the record and it will take you to the iNat record.  You can then message the recorder but, you need an iNat account and from my experience only about 25% respond, so their records just get rejected. 

My heart sinks every time I receive a 'you have new records from iNaturalist to verify' email notification. 
J

Thanks for your suggestion. I don't have an iNaturalist account so cannot currently use that option. Thankfully, I have very few records to verify from that source.

I know the feeling about notifications to verify iNaturalist records. Two more tonight but this time with the recorder's home address, including house name & postcode as the location so I can add GDPR concerns to the list of data issues... And, it says the village name is in Hereford when the grid reference is Powys, Wales. Utterly confusing...

From a plant perspective in Sussex iNaturalist records are widening the recording for common species yet tend to pick up the same rarities recorded by the recorders using iRecord. It is a different community using each platform on the whole so hopefully it is getting people interested and learning.

Additionally I've had a good response from contacting recorders to talk about licencing. Our LERC doesn't use any NC records and recorders don't realise this. Most are happy to change to a CC-BY or 0 licence so that there records can be useful.

Julia, I only set up an iNat account to query records, and its getting to the stage that I really cant be bothered with them.  It takes more time sorting iNat records into a half useable state than its worth.  Any I do look att get edited to casual rather than research grade as they are casual records at best and nothing more.  Some I feel like just deleting and some I just reject  - especially when the grid ref is just sheet letters eg TQ or SK. 

@josscarr This will be really interesting reading. Will it be open access?