Mobile Apps for Research Data Collection

Dr Simon Price (Research IT Manager)Polly Eccleston (Research IT Facilitator)

UK Butterfly Survey

BatMobile

How it worksLat/Long obtained via phone’s GPS in the field

Normal accuracy between 2 and 8m

51.391709743,-

0.170123657 Photo + Metadata

http://www.brc.ac.uk/irecord/

iRecord Butterflies (Butterfly Conservation)

• 31,000 surveys submitted this year.

• 2x Springwatch 2014 and 1x Autumnwatch 2014

• Data is being used by Butterfly Conservation to monitor butterfly populations year and year.

• A significant public engagement tool for them.

PlantTracker (Environment Agency)

• 10,000 verified records of invasive plants submitted.

• Many projects using the data to tackle invasive non-native species. e.g. Yorkshire wildlife trust and Jersey Council

• Probably the highest quality data set on invasive plants on the NBN Gateway

• Data downloaded at least once per week on average by researchers and others interested in the data

Why it works

For researchers: – Geo-located data– Photo attached (verifiable… most of the time)– Enables previously impractical surveys– Improves public understanding of research

For the public:– Apps themselves are informative– Accessible by anyone (potentially)– Feedback via immediate visibility of contribution

onlinesurveys.ac.uk

9

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• BOS launched in 2003.

• £1m+ redevelopment from 2011 to 2014.

• New BOS released October 2014.

• Free for UoB researchers.

Who uses BOS?

• Over 85% of UK HEIs

• National "benchmarking" surveys (60+ universities)– Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS)– Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES)– Research Leaders survey

• Free for UoB researchers (180+ Bristol accounts)

App development in BOS

• Build data collection apps yourself without a developer.

• Mobile websites (& can package as app).

• Today:• Surveys, web forms, logic and general data collection

• Planned:• Geolocation, maps, access to camera and sensors

BatMobile

BatMobile project

• SoundHound, Shazam etc. enable people to identify songs they hear, using a mobile app.

• BatMobile applies the same principle to identify species of bats from their ultrasonic calls.

• Challenges:– realtime on a mobile– online vs. offline analysis– ultrasound => need a special microphone

Research IT

simon.price@bristol.ac.ukpolly.eccleston@bristol.ac.uk

www.bristol.ac.uk/rit