Cornell Lab of Ornithology Research
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Item Bird Cams Lab Video DataMady, Rachael; Mason, Peter; Strimas-Mackey, Matt; Chu, Miyoko; Phillips, Tina; Bonter, David; Eldermire, Charles; Walters, Benjamin (2021-12-03)Bird Cams Lab was a project funded by the National Science Foundation that ran from 2018 to 2021, providing opportunities for the public to work with scientists to co-create scientific investigations using online wildlife cams. Participants had the opportunity to be a part of each stage of the scientific process: making observations, posing questions to investigate, designing the study, collecting data, exploring results, and sharing findings. There were six investigations, and a total of more than 500,000 observations. Participants collected data from archived video footage on the Zooniverse platform, and in real time using a data tagging tool on the Bird Cams Lab and Bird Cams website. We have organized the 10-15-second video clips by investigation. To access the observational data, see https://doi.org/10.7298/fxqt-zw38. When using the data, please acknowledge the contributions and funding under Acknowledgements and use the suggested citation. To learn more about the Bird Cams Lab project, visit https://birdcamslab.allaboutbirds.org/. For any questions about the data, please contact Bird Cams (birdcams@cornell.edu).Item Bird Cams Lab Biological DataMady, Rachael; Mason, Peter; Strimas-Mackey, Matt; Chu, Miyoko; Phillips, Tina; Bonter, David; Eldermire, Charles; Walters, Benjamin (2021-11-11)Bird Cams Lab was a project funded by the National Science Foundation that ran from 2018 to 2021, providing opportunities for the public to work with scientists to co-create scientific investigations using online wildlife cams. Participants had the opportunity to be a part of each stage of the scientific process: making observations,posing questions to investigate, designing the study, collecting data, exploring results, and sharing findings. There were six investigations, and a total of more than 500,000 observations. Participants collected data from archived video footage on the Zooniverse platform, and in real time using a data tagging tool on the Bird Cams Lab and Bird Cams website. The data are intended to be open access and we encourage anyone to use the information to explore or conduct research. We have organized the data for each investigation in its own folder. When using the data, please acknowledge the contributions and funding under Acknowledgements and use the suggested citation. To learn more about the Bird Cams Lab project, visit https://birdcamslab.allaboutbirds.org/. To access the code used to work with this data, visit https://bitbucket.org/cornellbirds/bcl-data-workflow/src/live/.For any questions about the data, please contact Bird Cams (birdcams@cornell.edu).Item Citizen Science as a Tool for Biodiversity MonitoringAllen, Paul E.; Cooper, Caren B (2006)Monitoring to assess spatial and temporal trends in biological diversity is increasingly important as human populations and resource use expands. Most monitoring is carried out by government agencies charged with managing natural resources and by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with missions to conserve biodiversity. Citizen Science is a venue through which volunteers participate in research, often through data collection over a variety of temporal and spatial scales. Citizen Science operates on the principle that nature enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels can make important, reliable contributions. Citizen Science can be structured to span a range of non-competing goals, from informal public education (i.e., emphasis on “citizen”) to hypothesis-driven research (i.e., emphasis on “science”). As a tool to collect biodiversity data, Citizen Science is a particularly powerful way to monitor across broad geographic and temporal scales. Using Citizen Science for biodiversity monitoring harbors the potential to change public attitudes about science, the environment, and conservation, as active participation in monitoring is an informal education experience. Citizen Science permits the monitoring to be integrated into hypothesis-driven research, promoting an understanding and appreciation of the scientific method and the nature of scientific inquiry. In this paper, we focus on monitoring avian species, yet the tool we describe can be used for any type of biodiversity monitoring.