iSpot is a new website designed to bring people with an interest in nature together. Billed as ‘your place to share nature’, iSpot draws inspiration from the success of ‘social networking’ websites such as Facebook to provide a forum for people of all ages to share observations and experiences.

Created by the Open University (OU) and funded by Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) iSpot was originally conceived as an educational resource to assist with biological identification. Users can post observations, pictures or descriptions of things they’ve seen and others can respond suggesting identifications or providing information. Albums of observations can be created, tagged and searched and sightings are linked with locations provided by Google Maps. The website is designed to be simple to use but with some powerful underpinning features that can be expanded as the project develops.

Whilst many groups cannot be readily identified to species level without a specimen, it is hoped that iSpot will become a useful biological recording tool in the future. Links with the National Biodiversity Network species dictionaries and distribution maps will help to identify unusual records worthy of further investigation and information from iSpot can be exported to other organisations for recording or survey purposes. This will also be linked with the OU’s ‘Bayesian Keys’ project – aimed at applying computing power to traditional identification keys so they can be accessed rapidly in the field via handheld devices.

The success or otherwise or iSpot will ultimately be decided by whether or not it is able to deliver useful information to its users, be it assistance with an observation by a novice or an interesting new record for a biological recorder. To this end iSpot is appealing for new users, whatever their background or experience, to become involved with the new community. So log on to www.ispot.org.uk and have a go!