Customizing a Project Homepage

The information below serves as a guide for project organizers and/or managers creating the homepage of their FieldScope projects. See here for guidance and specifications about the sections of the homepage that may be customized, and use this guide while you are designing the content of your project homepage.

When new projects launch on FieldScope, a project on-boarding specialist provides project organizers with a digital folder that they can use to outline the information and visuals that should be added to their project homepages. Homepage content can be further customized and edited over time.

(If you are interested in launching a new FieldScope project to host your citizen or community science project or networked field study, read this article.)

1. Customizing the project header image and text

The header of a project homepage includes (1) a key image, (2) a project title and a tagline -- or brief description -- of a project, (3) boxes displaying how many observations and contributors a project has at the time a visitor views the page, and (4) a project logo. 

1 - Key image

An ideal homepage image is no more than 1024 pixels wide x 760 pixels high. At minimum, it should be at least 692 pixels wide and 400 pixels tall. 

The key image for your project should be used as a visual example of what volunteers will be monitoring in this project or of what participation will be like. Please note that you must have rights or permission to use any photo that is featured on a FieldScope project homepage, and any applicable photo credits should be included in the Project overview section that is outlined below. 

2 - Project title and tagline

 A project title can be up to 40 characters long, including spaces. The accompanying tagline can be up to 200 characters, including spaces. The tagline should give a brief idea of your project goals.

3 - Observation and contributor boxes

 The “Total observations” and “Total contributors” boxes are a nice way to showcase highly active projects. If your project includes bulk uploads, please note the “Total contributors” box might not be reflective of how active your project actually is. Likewise, if your project is focused on gaining a few key observations in a particular area or during a short time frame instead of numerous observations, the “Total observations box” might not be reflective of your project’s aims. Either box may be removed from the main page; just let the FieldScope team know. 

4 - Logo image

If you wish, you may add a logo to your project. If you choose to include it, your project logo will appear in the upper left-hand corner of the project page (see an example below). Ideally, the logo will be no more than 30 pixels high and no more than 600 pixels wide. Project logos should be horizontal to achieve the best results. 

Please note: If you choose not to include a logo on your project page, the FieldScope logo will appear in this location instead.

2. Customizing the Project overview tab

The following is a recommended format to use when organizing information in the Project overview tab.

Description of the project

Start this section with an overview of the project and what it is about.

Goals or objectives

If your project has goals, objectives, or research questions that you want to share with volunteers or the public, include them here. If there are multiple goals, use a bulleted list.

What data are being collected?

Provide an overview of the data you are asking participants to contribute. You can expand on this in the How to Participate section.

Where are data being collected?

Outline the geographic areas and locations where participating individuals may collect data and if there are any specific restrictions on where project participants may collect data.

3. Customizing the How to participate tab

Use this section to describe to new or existing participants how they can participate in your project. The example above shows a short paragraph providing a project overview, the inclusion of the project monitoring protocol (in this case included as a downloadable hyperlink in the sentence after the first paragraph), and a description of how participants can receive training. You may include any of these aspects in your How to participate section, as applicable.

Who can join?

You may also want to include information about who can join the project. Is it open to anyone? Are there special skills that are required? Detail this information in this section.

4. Customizing the Who is involved tab

Use the Who is involved section to highlight project supporters, partners, or stakeholders, including:

• sponsor organizations (as is shown in the example above)
• project scientists
• project leads
• funders
• other stakeholders of any kind that you want to call out

The descriptions of each individual or group highlighted should include:

• a title
• the affiliation or relationship to the project
• a location
• a description or bio up to 75 words (hyperlinks can be included)
• an accompanying profile photo (for people) or logo image (for organizations, funders, etc.)

5. Adding customized visualizations to the homepage 

We recommend adding customized visualizations of project data to your project home page. This will allow project participants and visitors to  see the kinds of maps and graphs of project data they can interact with and create (see our Visualizing Data in FieldScope article for more on this). Adding customized visualizations to your project offers windows into your project’s data set and an entry point for participants to conduct their own analyses. In the example below, visualizations depicting poor water quality are posted to a project’s homepage. The visualizations you create and save to represent your project’s data will appear in the Explore and learn section of your project’s homepage (towards the bottom above the webpage footer) and also in the Visualizations section of your project.

If you would like to add customized visualizations to your project homepage, just create and save the visualization you would like to highlight, set this visualization to Make this public, and let the FieldScope team know you would like to feature it on your homepage.

Multiple tabs of visualizations may be added to your project homepage. In the example below, a project has chosen to highlight a main “Get to Know the FrogWatch Data” tab and a second tab of visualizations from only 2019.

You are able to add up to three featured visualizations per tab at a time and may update these visualizations and tabs as time goes by. Contact the FieldScope team to learn more about adding visualizations to your homepage.