Crowdsourcing (Volunteer Instructions)

This page provides basic instructions that you can give to your crowdsourcers to get them started in the crowdsourcing module. Note that you will want to add specific transcription instructions for your collection.

Creating an Account

First, you’ll need an account in the portal for which you will be crowdsourcing.

  1. Navigate to the portal in which you will be georeferencing.
  2. Click the Sign In button or link (generally at the top right of the page), then click the Create an Account link.
  3. Enter the requested information, check the “I’m not a robot” box, and click Create Login.

After you’ve created an account once, you will use this login information for all future sessions.

  1. Once you are logged in, click the Crowdsourcing tab from the main menu or the link provided by your event leader.
  2. Your stats will be shown in the top right side of the page under Your User Status. Here you can see how many specimens you have transcribed, as well as how many points are awaiting approval and how many have been approved.
    • Pending points are those that have not yet been reviewed by a curator. Curators are very busy, please be patient if your pending points don’t turn into approved points very quickly!
    • Approved points are those that have been reviewed and approved by a curator
  3. In the table at the bottom of the page (titled Your Stats by Collection), click on the link in the “Open Records” column next to the name of the collection you would like to work on (or the collection instructed by your event leader).
  4. On the resulting page, you’ll see a table of specimen records that require transcription. Select one of the specimens by clicking on its Symbiota ID number (leftmost column).
    • If you see a message that says Record Locked!, go to the next specimen by clicking the double arrows at the top right of the form.
  5. Transcribe the record as instructed.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers 2001500, 2001509, 2001394, 2001422, 2001427, 2001431, 2001299, 2001354, 2001288, and 2001345. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Additional resources about crowdsourcing in a Symbiota portal can be found below:

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Content by Katie Pearson & Lindsay Walker.

Created on 07 Oct 2021, last edited on 27 Sep 2024.

Cite this page:

Katie Pearson, Lindsay Walker. Crowdsourcing (Volunteer Instructions). In: Symbiota Support Hub (2024). Symbiota Documentation. https://biokic.github.io/symbiota-docs/editor/crowdsource/individual/. Created on 07 Oct 2021, last edited on 27 Sep 2024.