The meeting, held on 11.9.25 at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, focused on the collection, management, and use of data, with an emphasis on the importance of maintaining protocols and proper handling—data standardization, principles of sound data collection, data storage, data analysis, data accessibility, and preparing for data submission to the ICCS, as well as better understanding of iNaturalist data use and analysis.
Conference Presentation
Kalaniot Project Presentation — Prof. Yuval Sapir
Black Longspine Urchin Project — Iris Preiss
In a workshop led by Dr. Tomer Gueta, we practiced the new Darwin Core Data Package standardization.
In a workshop led by Dr. Nirit Lavie Alon, we followed the iNaturalist Project Guide for identifying observations and downloading data, and presented the guide for analyzing iNaturalist data with students, in order to recognize potential biases and explore approaches for data analysis based on different types of questions.
At the end of the meeting, we discussed preparations for next year’s forum sessions. It was agreed that the current format—four meetings per year, with two in-person and two on Zoom—is excellent. A request was made for all meetings to be held on a fixed day of the week (Thursday) and at set times.
Topics requested for inclusion in next year’s forum meetings:
- Continued work on the database and implementation of project data integration into the Israel Center for Citizen Science system
- Further deepening in data analysis
- Making data accessible and presenting it to different target audiences
- Comparing and linking citizen science data with research datasets — statistical methods
- Submitting to international calls and securing funding
Another idea raised in preparation for the Annual Citizen Science Conference (date to be announced) is for each project to prepare a poster according to a shared template.
The next forum meeting will focus on marketing and communication.
Interested in joining the forum? Contact us.
