Cos4Bio is an online portal that integrates biodiversity observations from multiple citizen observatories – citizen science platforms to collect biodiversity photos - in one place. Currently, it includes observations of four of the largest citizen observatories in Europe: Natusfera, iSpot, Pl@ntNet and Artportalen, and soon Cos4Bio will also include iSpot and Artportalen’s observations. These observations are available in Cos4Bio in a standardised format - under the same structure - (e.g., species name, location, etc.).
The main advantage of this portal is that anyone can log into the portal to save time in the species identification process and download many species data from several countries instead of accessing different platforms. For example, suppose you are a scientist and want to study the distribution of butterflies worldwide; you could download all the butterflies' observations from the portal regardless of the citizen science observatory or country. Just as simple as that: you get loads of data from a huge coverage area.
Additionally, anyone that wants to contribute to identifying species can do it in the same portal. Once identified, the observation returns to the citizen observatory from where it was reported for final validation according to their specific algorithm. For example, some algorithms require a certain degree of expertise to validate the species' name, but others ask for many identifications of the same observation to validate it, etc.
Bineo-Consulting has developed Cos4Bio in the Horizon 2020 Cos4Cloud project framework, a project coordinated by ICM-CSIC and part of the EOSC Portal, which is currently developing 12 services to boost citizen science technologies. Cos4Bio is ready to use and available in the EOSC Market.
Cos4Bio also integrates another Cos4Cloud service, AUTHENIX, a secure authentication system that ensures compliance with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
- Portal News