Citizen Science Observation Platform - Using Curated Twitter and GeoRSS Enabled Feeds

This project leveraged existing efforts toward the use of social media systems for delivery of information into a web based visualization framework. Rather than support the development of an expensive system developed in-house, this project supports the use of cloud-based social media system Twitter to provide a robust observation platform. Development efforts were directed at utilizing the substantial Twitter API feature set to query the media stream for species observation submissions. Citizen science participants were encouraged to use the Twitter direct message system to submit species observations using a pre-defined schema. Observations were extracted from the Twitter stream and processed using geospatial, chart and timeline modules.



Principal Investigator : Derek Masaki, Megan K Hines, David L Govoni



Benefits

• Low Cost, Scalable, High Visibility, Proven Platform
• Twitter apps already provide geolocation, photo, text input
• Published API allows rapid development
• Builds on prior experience (USGSTed) & available skillsets

Deliverables

• Powerpoint Presentation given at CDI-hosted Webinar (September 2012)
• Initiated the Baltimore/DC Evening Sound Census of Singing Insects
• The cricket crawl resulted in 2000 species reported, from 300 observers over the course of 4 hours.
• Internal CDI Project Progress Report

Note: this information is from the FY12 CDI Annual Review