The Taiwan Roadkill Observation Network Data Set.

Study Extent

Sampling

Quality Control

Method steps

1. Stage 1: Crawling Facebook Posts for Occurrence Data to Upload to Database This process was in use from August 2011 to the end of 2015 in which the volunteers posted observation data directly to the Facebook group. Originally, citizen science members uploaded a photo of the road kill specimen with a scale reference directly onto the Taiwan Roadkill Observation Network (Reptile Roadkill Mortality) Facebook page. Pertinent information was included with photos as comments on the published post, including dates, times, species names (if known), and GPS coordinates. We used a web crawler via Facebook’s Graph API to find, retrieve, verify, and input road kill data into the database. The crawler collected posts (along with images, time and location data, and other annotations) on the Facebook Group and put them in an aggregated table of all observations. Participants were also encouraged to collect and send road kill specimens to TESRI. Due to the unstructured format, contributors often did not upload posts with complete information, or did not post pertinent information uniformly, which made crawling for data more difficult. For example, users would often record the location inconsistently, such as decimal degrees or minutes, seconds, degrees format, qualitatively describe the location, post photos of nearby road-side utility poles with locational references, or take screen shots of a GPS app. Soon after launching the web app, TaiRON also released an Android app (“Android App 1.0”) for members on the Android platform to use. Similarly to the TaiRON Web App 1.0, users could submit structured data through the Android app, which would publish uniform information directly through the contributor’s Facebook account. The data would be crawled and verified by project managers before being uploaded to the database. There were several issues in this process. It appeared to encourage users to first publish onto the Facebook group (through Facebook, the TaiRON Web App 1.0, and the TaiRON Android App 1.0). We then crawled the group for data. User and protected species privacy were compromised; and an ever-updating Facebook APIs made application updates to keep up with Facebook necessary. Even though we were able to update the Android app in order to fix bugs that arose when each time Facebook changed its APIs, the Google Play Store’s one week lag-time in releasing the update was prohibitively slow. This prompted the project managers to develop methods to better control the content distributed on the Facebook group and to circumvent Facebook’s constant API updates.
2. Stage 2: Direct Uploading Observations to Project Website via Android App, and Posting Abridged Information to Facebook Afterwards This process was in use from late 2015 to early 2017. The volunteers posted structured observation records first to the TaiRON project website. The website then posted abridged records to the Facebook group for user interactions and species identifications. Due to the privacy issues and difficulty in keeping up with Facebook’s ever-changing interface, project managers worked with app developers to launch a new version of the free Android app (“Android App 2.0”) that members could download. With the TaiRON Android App 2.0, users were still able to log onto the app through their Facebook account, providing an easy transition for members. The main procedural change this app created was that the app allowed citizen scientists to upload their observations directly to the TaiRON website before the information was published in a uniform manner onto the Facebook group through the contributor’s Facebook account. This effectively resolved issues of gathering non-uniform data with a web crawler for database uploading and added an additional layer for information distribution control. After users uploaded onto the TaiRON website through the app, only the uploader and project managers had access to all the data; the detailed locational data was not published to Facebook. There was also an added option of sending an anonymous observation digest to the Facebook Group. The observer’s identity and observation location is kept at the TaiRON website and known by the researchers, but is not available to others at the Facebook Group. This provides some protection of the observer’s locational privacy. When the observations are aggregated into datasets, we remove the observers’ IDs in the records before the datasets are made available to others. On the other hand, as many participants have opted to release their observation photos under the Creative Commons Licenses, they must be properly attributed when the image files are released. Participants can have photos attributed to their nicknames, or require no attribution at all (by the use of the CC0 Public Domain Dedication). Additionally, this step allowed us to protect the locational data for endangered and protected species, which are not released to the public on the Facebook group or on the project website; users who wished to see this data must be approved by the project managers. Continuing to publish the observations (sans detailed location) to the Facebook group allowed other members, including experts in the group, to have continued involvement in the verification of the data. After experts from the group verified the identification the observation, project managers would review the observation for accuracy and completeness and changed the status of the observation from “unconfirmed” to “confirmed” in the database. All verified data is available for the wider community to access through the website except that of protected species. Though this flip in procedural steps smoothed the process of user data input, data mining/collection from Facebook, and privacy issues with public posts on Facebook, the app was not accessible to members using iOS platforms.
3. Stage 3: Direct Uploading Observations to Project Website via Web App, and Posting Abridged Information to Facebook Afterwards This process is in use starting from early 2017. The volunteers also posted structured observation records first to the TaiRON project website. This is done by accessing directly to a page at website for uploading observation records. After uploading, the website abridged records to the Facebook group. Because the Apple App Store was prohibitively difficult to publish an app in, and the Android app was often waylaid by the time it took to release new updates, the TaiRON project team has developed the a web-native method (“Web App 2.0”) that is accessible across all smartphone platforms and does not have to be published by a third party app store. Users access the web app through their smartphone’s web browser and TaiRON’s webpage (https://roadkill.tw/). Members sign onto the webpage with their Facebook account and upload through dedicated observation-reporting pages (https://roadkill.tw/app), which is accessible through smartphones, computers, and other mobile devices with Web browsers. Here they have the option to upload up to five photos of an individual, or up to five photos of separate individuals. Once the photos are uploaded, the web app detects date, time, and locational metadata associated with the photo and automatically fills corresponding sections of the form with the option to edit the information. Users can also indicate species, supplementary explanations, if they are sending a specimen, the quantity of individuals observed, and the supposed cause of death. After an observation is directly uploaded to the website by the user, using the Facebook API, the website then automatically publishes the observation sans locational data to Facebook through the group’s user account, “TW Roadkill.” The published Facebook post tags the contributing user to credit them with the observation. After posting in the group, project managers and other expert members can then review the observation for accuracy and completeness, and once verified, change the observation status to “confirmed.” Currently, members can contribute observations to TaiRON’s database through several means, listed in decreasing order of ease of data collection method: 1) TaiRON Web App 2.0 accessed from the mobile website 2) directly posting on the Facebook group, and 3) directly messaging observations to a project manager. Less than 5% of observations are now contributed outside of using the Web App 2.0.

1. Chordata
   rank: phylum
2. Arthropoda
   rank: phylum
3. Amphibia
   rank: class
4. Aves
   rank: class
5. Malacostraca
   rank: class
6. Mammalia
   rank: class
7. Reptilia
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8. Accipitriformes
   rank: order
9. Anseriformes
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10. Anura
    rank: order
11. Apodiformes
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12. Artiodactyla
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13. Carnivora
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14. Cetacea
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15. Charadriiformes
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16. Chiroptera
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17. Columbiformes
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18. Coraciiformes
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19. Cuculiformes
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20. Decapoda
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21. Galliformes
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22. Gruiformes
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23. Insectivora
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24. Lagomorpha
    rank: order
25. Passeriformes
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26. Pelecaniformes
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27. Piciformes
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28. Primates
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29. Rodentia
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30. Squamata
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31. Strigiformes
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32. Testudines
    rank: order
33. Accipitridae
    rank: family
34. Aegithalidae
    rank: family
35. Agamidae
    rank: family
36. Alaudidae
    rank: family
37. Alcedinidae
    rank: family
38. Anatidae
    rank: family
39. Anguidae
    rank: family
40. Apodidae
    rank: family
41. Ardeidae
    rank: family
42. Bombycillidae
    rank: family
43. Bovidae
    rank: family
44. Bufonidae
    rank: family
45. Campephagidae
    rank: family
46. Canidae
    rank: family
47. Caprimulgidae
    rank: family
48. Cercopithecidae
    rank: family
49. Cervidae
    rank: family
50. Cettidae
    rank: family
51. Charadriidae
    rank: family
52. Cheloniidae
    rank: family
53. Ciconiidae
    rank: family
54. Cisticolidae
    rank: family
55. Coenobitidae
    rank: family
56. Colubridae
    rank: family
57. Columbidae
    rank: family
58. Corvidae
    rank: family
59. Cricetidae
    rank: family
60. Cuculidae
    rank: family
61. Delphinidae
    rank: family
62. Dicroglossidae
    rank: family
63. Dicruridae
    rank: family
64. Elapidae
    rank: family
65. Emberizidae
    rank: family
66. Emydidae
    rank: family
67. Estrildidae
    rank: family
68. Felidae
    rank: family
69. Fringillidae
    rank: family
70. Gaviidae
    rank: family
71. Gecarcinidae
    rank: family
72. Gekkonidae
    rank: family
73. Geoemydidae
    rank: family
74. Glareolidae
    rank: family
75. Grapsidae
    rank: family
76. Haematopodidae
    rank: family
77. Herpestidae
    rank: family
78. Hipposideridae
    rank: family
79. Hirundinidae
    rank: family
80. Homalopsidae
    rank: family
81. Hylidae
    rank: family
82. Iguanidae
    rank: family
83. Jacanidae
    rank: family
84. Lacertidae
    rank: family
85. Laniidae
    rank: family
86. Laridae
    rank: family
87. Leiothrichidae
    rank: family
88. Leporidae
    rank: family
89. Manidae
    rank: family
90. Meropidae
    rank: family
91. Microhylidae
    rank: family
92. Miniopteridae
    rank: family
93. Monarchidae
    rank: family
94. Motacillidae
    rank: family
95. Muridae
    rank: family
96. Muscicapidae
    rank: family
97. Mustelidae
    rank: family
98. Ocypodidae
    rank: family
99. Oriolidae
    rank: family
100. Paradoxornithidae
     rank: family
101. Pareatidae
     rank: family
102. Paridae
     rank: family
103. Passeridae
     rank: family
104. Pellorneidae
     rank: family
105. Phaethontidae
     rank: family
106. Phasianidae
     rank: family
107. Phocoenidae
     rank: family
108. Phylloscopidae
     rank: family
109. Picidae
     rank: family
110. Pittidae
     rank: family
111. Podicipedidae
     rank: family
112. Potamidae
     rank: family
113. Procellariidae
     rank: family
114. Psittacidae
     rank: family
115. Pycnonotidae
     rank: family
116. Pythonidae
     rank: family
117. Rallidae
     rank: family
118. Ramphastidae
     rank: family
119. Ranidae
     rank: family
120. Recurvirostridae
     rank: family
121. Rhacophoridae
     rank: family
122. Rhinolophidae
     rank: family
123. Rostratulidae
     rank: family
124. Scincidae
     rank: family
125. Sciuridae
     rank: family
126. Scolopacidae
     rank: family
127. Sesarmidae
     rank: family
128. Soricidae
     rank: family
129. Strigidae
     rank: family
130. Sturnidae
     rank: family
131. Suidae
     rank: family
132. Sulidae
     rank: family
133. Sylviidae
     rank: family
134. Talpidae
     rank: family
135. Threskiornithidae
     rank: family
136. Timaliidae
     rank: family
137. Trionychidae
     rank: family
138. Troglodytidae
     rank: family
139. Turdidae
     rank: family
140. Turnicidae
     rank: family
141. Typhlopidae
     rank: family
142. Upupidae
     rank: family
143. Vespertilionidae
     rank: family
144. Viperidae
     rank: family
145. Viverridae
     rank: family
146. Xenodermatidae
     rank: family
147. Zosteropidae
     rank: family