The FieldScope platform now has functionality that can support multiple groups working within a project. To provide an example of how data from groups may be managed on the platform, this article will review the functionality within the FrogWatch USA project, which is one of many citizen science projects using FieldScope. 

Note: In this post, we will refer to “groups,” “group coordinators,” and “group members.” If you are part of the FrogWatch USA program, you may refer to these as “chapters,” “chapter coordinators,” and “chapter members.”

Setting up Groups in a Project

Any project in FieldScope can have groups enabled. When members sign up for your project they will then select a group affiliation as part of their registration process. For more on starting a new FieldScope project, see the Create a New FieldScope Project article

Seeing a List Your Group's Data

When you are assigned as a coordinator for your group, you have special access to data contributions from members of your chapter. Click on the Data tab at the top of the screen and, if you are signed in and marked as a coordinator for your group, you will see a My Group tab. Within it, there is a list of all data contributed by members of your group. 

You have the option to switch between Map and Table mode. In table mode (as shown below), there is also an option to Download data (in the upper left corner of the data table). You can also click the table column headings to see data in alphabetical or numeric ascending or descending order. 

You can click on any row in the table to pull up a data summary card. At the top of the card, there is an Edit button. Click this to edit any details of the observation if there is an error you need to fix. In edit mode, you can also see the name and contact information for the member who contributed the data. 

Seeing a List of Your Group Members

When you are signed in as a coordinator for your group, you will also see a Manage section at the top of the project page in FieldScope. Within the Manage tab there is a tab called Users. This is a list of members registered to your group. See an image below - with personal information greyed out for privacy - that gives an example of the group coordinator view of the Manage section of the FieldScope with a group’s member list pulled up. 

Managing Data from Your Group 

Sometimes, as a group coordinator, you may be asked by group members to help them fix something with the data they input. You can do this by Editing the Data. 

Anytime a member makes a comment on an observation in your project--often because they have a question about it--the data associated with that observation are marked as needing to be reviewed. The observation will show up in the Manage section of your project. Click on the observation or station ID to open the data record and see comments or questions from members. In this view, you can edit or delete the data. Please be cautious and only delete data that truly need to be removed from the database (usually because an observation is a duplicate or there has been an accidental addition of data). Once data are deleted, they cannot be recovered. 

Group Coordinator Assignments

To be assigned as a coordinator to a group in your project, please contact the manager of your project. FrogWatch USA members should email frogwatch@aza.org and request to be added as a coordinator for your chapter. Please note, you will need to have an active account with FieldScope and have your account profile set as a member of your chapter. Make sure to let the FrogWatch staff know which email you use to sign in to FrogWatch on FieldScope. This will be the email address tied to your coordinator account.