Options for using the app for 1 km square FIT Counts

[kitenetter]

Just wanted to capture some thoughts on this following discussion at the steering group for UK PoMS today.

In the UK we ask our 1 km square volunteers to carry out FIT Counts as part of the 1 km square surveys. Up until now we have treated these 1 km square FIT Counts as a separate dataset, to be distinguished from the public FIT Counts. Consequently, we have asked our 1 km surveyors not to use the app, because there is no way within the app of distinguishing between counts for the 1 km square survey and other counts.

However, the app is popular and the 1 km square surveyors would like to be able to use it! Options I can think of are:

1. Add a tick box to the app so that recorders can say "This is a 1 km square FIT Count" (will need to be country-specific)
2. Use the roles on the website to identify the recorders who are 1 km square surveyors
3. Use database queries to pull out all FIT Counts that are from the same combination of surveyor/date/1 km square as our pan-trap samples.

Those options have drawbacks: option 1 relies on people remembering to use the tick box (and also assumes that people will not use it when they shouldn't); option 2 will include FIT Counts that our volunteers do away from their 1 km square surveys; option 3 adds to the post-season data management workload (but is perhaps the best option?).

Questions:

• Is this also an issue for the EU scheme?
• Do we definitely need to continue treating the 1 km FIT Counts as a separate dataset?

[CCarvell]

@kitenetter of your 3 options, I think option 1 is the best from a user and data analysis perspective (some of our 1 km square surveyors will want to use the app outside of 1 km squares so 2 is risky; 3 seems fiddly for you/ the person with the database). Option 1 could be tricky from the app design perspective BUT based on your other questions:

a) Yes it could be an issue for the EU scheme, they will have fixed survey squares and may well want to do FIT Counts in those, but not currently a core element. b) Yes I would like to distinguish counts on 1 km squares BUT also want to start analysing all counts within the same model. That way we can see if the 1 km counts are mirrored by the public counts (and pan traps) and vice versa, but also benefit from the extra power of the larger dataset.

One further thought: with the app we have (for now) lost the ability to accept photos of insects for potential verification, but with the website form we have retained that. I guess other countries won't have the insect species photo option if they only use the app, but it could be something to build into the app as phase 2 provided the infrastructure is there to deal with the extra photos?

[DavidRoy]

A request like this has already come from Sweden. We can cover the development work from the SPRING budget.

There is a 4th option of adding an additional survey option for 'fixed site FIT Count'. This could either be part of the core app or only turned on via settings. This 'fixed site FIT Count' survey would then be either accessed via a long-press of the [Start Survey] button or by selecting a site via the location page. A secondary consideration is whether the 'fixed sites' are allocated to specific users or anyone can choose a 'fixed site'. We have similar functionality within the ButterflyCount app for entering data for fixed transects. It might be easier if I explain my thinking to @kazlauskis to then produce some mock-ups.

[kitenetter]

For the UK 1 km square surveys we have now enabled this using the 'projects' feature. Not aware of any current demand to implement this elsewhere - closing.