Our eBird bloggers include some of our most active, committed, and tech-savvy eBirders. It is this last element that we'd like to draw upon in this post, since it is really a call for help.
We periodically receive communications from birders who have years (even decades) of their bird notes in text form. Often in MS Word, or a similar format, these notes tend to be formatted in very regular ways which makes it possible to write some smart scripts to parse the information into a CSV or Excel file for eBird upload.
Unfortunately, the three eBird Project Leaders are pretty good with bird ID, but at the moment, none of us has the expertise to quickly and easily convert long text files into a CSV or Excel-compatible file that we can use via the eBird upload tool. An our eBird developers are busy developing RSS feeds and improving eBird queries and building other new cool stuff for the site itself, so we can't really draw on them.
We are wondering if there is anyone out there in the eBird Blogosphere that would have the expertise and willingness to assist us with converting text to CSV. Email Marshall directly at mji26@cornell.edu if you think you can help or have ideas (or if you have bird records in this format that you'd like to convert). Thanks!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Revealing personal locations--how do you feel about it?
eBirders
Over the past two years we've been developing tools that showcase our users, and in so doing we've made more and more of the eBird data easily accessible to the public. One of the things we've struggled with is whether or not to show people's personal locations on a map. If you look at the eBird "High Counts" output tool, you'll see a mix of locations listed there. The "hotspots" are linked to a Google Map, whereas people's personal locations have no map link. We thought this would be fine, but it turns out that we're getting a lot of complaints about it.
If you look at "High Counts" for a region and see one that interests you, don't you want to know where the high count occurred? The problem is that for personal locations we do not enforce any kind of naming standards, so there's lots of places like "My backyard" or "Jim's Place". The problem with this is that when there is a record of interest to the public, they can't make sense of that location name, nor can they click on a link to find out more about where it actually is.
On our Google Rare Bird Gadget we display all locations on maps, personal and shared. We have had few complaints about this. I'm wondering how you all feel about creating links to personal locations in all the eBird output tools so that people can learn more about your data? We will still have the "hide this" option to hide checklists so users with sensitive data can keep their information private if they wish. We'd love to hear your thoughts, comments and concerns.
Thanks
Brian Sullivan
Team eBird
Over the past two years we've been developing tools that showcase our users, and in so doing we've made more and more of the eBird data easily accessible to the public. One of the things we've struggled with is whether or not to show people's personal locations on a map. If you look at the eBird "High Counts" output tool, you'll see a mix of locations listed there. The "hotspots" are linked to a Google Map, whereas people's personal locations have no map link. We thought this would be fine, but it turns out that we're getting a lot of complaints about it.
If you look at "High Counts" for a region and see one that interests you, don't you want to know where the high count occurred? The problem is that for personal locations we do not enforce any kind of naming standards, so there's lots of places like "My backyard" or "Jim's Place". The problem with this is that when there is a record of interest to the public, they can't make sense of that location name, nor can they click on a link to find out more about where it actually is.
On our Google Rare Bird Gadget we display all locations on maps, personal and shared. We have had few complaints about this. I'm wondering how you all feel about creating links to personal locations in all the eBird output tools so that people can learn more about your data? We will still have the "hide this" option to hide checklists so users with sensitive data can keep their information private if they wish. We'd love to hear your thoughts, comments and concerns.
Thanks
Brian Sullivan
Team eBird
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
eBird taxonomic revision
eBirders,
Has there ever been anything that you have wanted to enter in eBird but have been unable to? Something like "eider sp." or "booby sp.", a rare hybrid that you saw (like Glaucous x Great Black-backed Gull) or a subspecies group like "Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)" (we already have that one).
The reason we ask is that we are revising our taxonomy now. We plan to expand the list of birds you can enter significantly, and have a list of recommendations from other eBirders which we will incorporate. If you have any birds you'd like to see in eBird, send any ideas like this to Marshall (mji26@cornell.edu).
NOTE: Before you send recommendations, please check to make sure we don;t already have the bird you are recommending. There are two ways to do this:
1) Download the eBird taxonomy and search for it here: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/ebird-taxonomy/eBird-taxonomy-1-049_28-Apr-2009.xls
2) Edit or submit a checklist, click "rare species" and type part of the bird name in the "Add a species" box. If you want to add a "sp.", just type "sp." and if you want to add a hybrid, just type hybrid, since you will get a list with all options containing that character string. Please remember, that we use a slash "/" for species pairs--thus, we use Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher rather than dowitcher sp. and Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs rather than yellowlegs sp.
Thanks!
-Marshall Iliff for Team eBird
Has there ever been anything that you have wanted to enter in eBird but have been unable to? Something like "eider sp." or "booby sp.", a rare hybrid that you saw (like Glaucous x Great Black-backed Gull) or a subspecies group like "Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)" (we already have that one).
The reason we ask is that we are revising our taxonomy now. We plan to expand the list of birds you can enter significantly, and have a list of recommendations from other eBirders which we will incorporate. If you have any birds you'd like to see in eBird, send any ideas like this to Marshall (mji26@cornell.edu).
NOTE: Before you send recommendations, please check to make sure we don;t already have the bird you are recommending. There are two ways to do this:
1) Download the eBird taxonomy and search for it here: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/ebird-taxonomy/eBird-taxonomy-1-049_28-Apr-2009.xls
2) Edit or submit a checklist, click "rare species" and type part of the bird name in the "Add a species" box. If you want to add a "sp.", just type "sp." and if you want to add a hybrid, just type hybrid, since you will get a list with all options containing that character string. Please remember, that we use a slash "/" for species pairs--thus, we use Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher rather than dowitcher sp. and Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs rather than yellowlegs sp.
Thanks!
-Marshall Iliff for Team eBird
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Take the eBird Survey
eBirders
We've just put up a participant survey on the eBird site. The goal of the survey is to try to figure out a few things: 1. we have many choices ahead of us in terms of eBird development, what do our users think might be the best direction in terms of improving overall usage?; and 2. we suspect that the data entry process has deterred some potential eBird users. How can we improve this so that it becomes more streamlined, and more user-friendly?
Please take a minute and take the survey, and let us know what you think.
Thanks
Brian and the rest of Team eBird
We've just put up a participant survey on the eBird site. The goal of the survey is to try to figure out a few things: 1. we have many choices ahead of us in terms of eBird development, what do our users think might be the best direction in terms of improving overall usage?; and 2. we suspect that the data entry process has deterred some potential eBird users. How can we improve this so that it becomes more streamlined, and more user-friendly?
Please take a minute and take the survey, and let us know what you think.
Thanks
Brian and the rest of Team eBird
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
eBird Online Presentations
eBirders
We're about to test out the ability to give online eBird presentations through a tool called Yugma. It will allow individuals to see our desktop and interact with us via an online forum, and essentially get all the benefits of a hands-on eBird presentation with the travel, expense, and environmental costs of jetting all over the continent. Let us know what you think of this idea, and if you want to attend the first presentation. Email me to confirm at bls42@cornell.edu.
Check out this post from the home page:
We're about to test out the ability to give online eBird presentations through a tool called Yugma. It will allow individuals to see our desktop and interact with us via an online forum, and essentially get all the benefits of a hands-on eBird presentation with the travel, expense, and environmental costs of jetting all over the continent. Let us know what you think of this idea, and if you want to attend the first presentation. Email me to confirm at bls42@cornell.edu.
Check out this post from the home page:
We love to give eBird presentations in person, but the next best thing might be doing it via an online tool that allows a group of people to attend an eBird talk. We can accomplish this in two ways: the first is to schedule a specific eBird presentation for a local group, which you can arrange by contacting us at (ebird@cornell.edu). The second is to have bi-monthly eBird online eBird presentations that are open to anyone wishing to learn more about eBird. These will generally be an hour long, and occur in the evening. They will require an internet connection so that users can be connected to each other, and be able to see our presentations on their desktops. We are currently trying to guage interest in this kind of bi-monthly event, so we're in a testing phase. The first presentation will be a general eBird overview given at 7 PM Eastern time on Wednesday, July 22nd. Attendance is limited to 20 people/talk, so please send us an email to register (bls42@cornell.edu) and receive instructions. These are free!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Help spread the word - eBird promo materials available
eBirders
We've just posted some promotional materials on the eBird site at this URL: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/ebird-promotional-material. The first powerpoint is a general eBird overview that talks about the concept of the project, shows the data entry process and a bit about data output. The second powerpoint is an overview of how to be a better eBirder, which incorporates many of the topics that we've posted about on the home page as well as in this forum.
The idea is for faithful eBird users to take these powerpoints and present them at local bird clubs, look at them with friends etc. We wanted to make these materials available so people wishing to promote eBird would have a good starting point to do so. Take a look and let us know what you think, and if you dare, try giving an eBird talk in your home range!
If you do let us know so we can keep track.
Thanks
Brian, Chris and Marshall
We've just posted some promotional materials on the eBird site at this URL: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/ebird-promotional-material. The first powerpoint is a general eBird overview that talks about the concept of the project, shows the data entry process and a bit about data output. The second powerpoint is an overview of how to be a better eBirder, which incorporates many of the topics that we've posted about on the home page as well as in this forum.
The idea is for faithful eBird users to take these powerpoints and present them at local bird clubs, look at them with friends etc. We wanted to make these materials available so people wishing to promote eBird would have a good starting point to do so. Take a look and let us know what you think, and if you dare, try giving an eBird talk in your home range!
If you do let us know so we can keep track.
Thanks
Brian, Chris and Marshall
Thursday, June 25, 2009
eBird - Under the hood
eBirders
This summer we're working on performance issues at eBird. Some birders who have lots of checklists are seeing really slow load times for things like the My eBird page, and we need to make sure that as eBird grows we can scale our tools up to meet user needs. What this means is that most of our development time will be spent on improvements that might not be obvious at first, but that should reap rewards for all users in the long run. We expect this to take a few more months.
We do have a few exciting developments that are about to be launched. The most important of which is a series of eBird APIs that feed data out to outside developers that want to make tools that use eBird data. These could include iPhone apps, Facebook apps etc. These should be launched in the coming weeks, and we're really excited about it.
We hope that you'll be patient as we go through this back-end development phase, but we do look forward to pushing out new and better tools for birders on the other side of this period.
Thanks
Brian, Chris and Marshall (and Tim who is sequestered in his cube)
This summer we're working on performance issues at eBird. Some birders who have lots of checklists are seeing really slow load times for things like the My eBird page, and we need to make sure that as eBird grows we can scale our tools up to meet user needs. What this means is that most of our development time will be spent on improvements that might not be obvious at first, but that should reap rewards for all users in the long run. We expect this to take a few more months.
We do have a few exciting developments that are about to be launched. The most important of which is a series of eBird APIs that feed data out to outside developers that want to make tools that use eBird data. These could include iPhone apps, Facebook apps etc. These should be launched in the coming weeks, and we're really excited about it.
We hope that you'll be patient as we go through this back-end development phase, but we do look forward to pushing out new and better tools for birders on the other side of this period.
Thanks
Brian, Chris and Marshall (and Tim who is sequestered in his cube)
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