There are 4 pieces of information that are always required for a biological record to be considered valid, this information is collected during submission. These are sometimes known as the 4 W’s:
Who: The name of the recorder who made the observation, it’s important to have a full name associated with a record. A valid e-mail address is also required to submit records also and is very important to have in case the validator needs to confirm or question any record details.
What: The name of the species you recorded. It’s really important to be certain of identification before entry onto our system. If you are not sure or have no idea what species you are looking at, you can always ask for assistance with the identification. The Citizen Science Portal has dedicated recording forms for many of the major taxonomic groups and additional surveys run or hosted by the National Biodiversity Data Centre. If you cannot find a particular recording form, then please try the “Other Species” form
Where: There are two pieces of information collected here also, the site name and the spatial reference of the record. It is important to be as accurate as possible when filling in this information. Thankfully using either the Citizen Science Web Portal or the Biodiversity Data Capture App you can easily get the spatial reference by choosing your location on the large map of Ireland or through the GPS/Location feature on your phone. This allows us to be able to plot the records and create distribution maps for all the species found in Ireland.
When: The date when you made your observation. This is another very important piece of information for a biological record. It is important to make sure if you are entering a record from a previous time to change the date on the online recording form, similarly the Biodiversity Data Capture App can only be used for “Live” recording and records cannot be submitted through it retrospectively.