Development phase
Design the survey or scheme
Once you’ve established your team and agreed your aims and target participants, you’re ready to design the practical aspects of your project. Remember to keep the participant audience in mind as this will strongly influence what participants are willing and able to do and the support mechanisms that you’ll need to provide. Whilst designing the survey you should bear in mind your data requirements (p14) and available technology (p16).
Develop the survey protocol
• What are you asking participants to do and how will they do it? What type of data (p14) do you need, and at what spatial and temporal coverage and resolution?
• Don’t over complicate – keep protocols as simple as possible, whilst still enabling capture of the
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Development phase
data you require. Complex protocols can be off putting and are likely to result in errors. There is often a trade-off between complexity or length of task and the number of participants.
• Can you build in progression for participants, so they begin with a simple task, then progress to more complex tasks as their skills and confidence increase?
• Consider standardising the method because this could increase the statistical analyses that are possible. To what extent do you need participants to collect the data in the same way and will this be feasible? Will survey sites need to be pre-allocated, or can participants choose them? These are particularly important questions for projects that aim to monitor wildlife.
• Bear in mind the health and safety of the participants and give advice or guidance where necessary (e.g. for the safe handling of equipment or wildlife).
• Consider whether any equipment is required, and how participants may obtain this. Will you provide it as part of a project pack? Search for other projects like yours. Look for opportunities that will benefit both you and your potential collaborators. Try not to reinvent the wheel. Will your protocol produce data that can be shared or added to existing data sets, to provide greater value?
• Don’t be afraid to contact people developing existing projects. Most scientists are keen to share ideas and experiences (see Resources and Links).
Develop supporting materials and mechanisms
• What supporting materials (e.g. instructions sheets, identification guides etc) will participants need and what form will these take (p17)?
• How will training and support be funded and coordinated? Can it be handled centrally, or do you need to establish (and help maintain) a network of local hubs and expertise?
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• Remember what your participants hope to get out of taking part (e.g. knowledge, skills, entertainment, an understanding of their local area) and ensure that support mechanisms allow them to achieve their aims.
• Once they’ve gathered the data, how will participants give them to you, how will you provide feedback and in what format (p22)?
• Remember to test supporting materials with potential participants (p19).
Plan evaluation
Plan evaluation methods at this stage – don’t leave it until the end. Evaluation is often left too late to be useful (p26).