Dunkadoo

Our Biggest Release Ever

All of Your Devices

Dunkadoo now runs on iPhones, iPads, Android Phones, and Android Tablets.

Real-Time Maps

Have you ever tried to find a bird based on a text or Tweet?
With Dunkadoo, you can now display sightings on an interactive map!

With GPS coordinates from a tablet or phone, sightings appear in seconds on a map where you can interact and discover with a touch of your finger.

Click Here to Check Out an Example Project

Birding Festivals and Fundraisers

1. Using Dunkadoo, you can build real-time maps of where the best birds are being found at your festival this fall.
2. Create a new Project.
3. Invite your tour guides by email address.
4. Tour guides install the app and start recording birds in seconds.
5. Visitors watch and discover new birds from their phones!

Birding Competitions

1. Dunkadoo is the killer app for your next competitive birding event.
2. Create a Project for each team.
3. Invite team members by email address.
4. Teams install the app and start recording birds in seconds.
5. During the competition, only enable “Tally” data on the public page which shows the total number of species found. This way competitors can watch in real-time as teams find more species – like a scoreboard for birding.
6. At the the deadline time, use the Dashboard to enable Maps and other public data. Feature interactive data in your banquet and awards ceremony. Make your competition stand out from the rest!

New Counter Training Video

Click Here to Watch the Video

New Mobile App Datasheet

The Datasheet displays the number of sightings by species each hour. Counters use this feature to keep track of their Observations each day and to double check their work.

• Datasheet hours can start at the top of the hour, at the start time of your first Metadata, or at the local sunrise time.
• Breaks out attributes into sub-rows.
• See the number of birds for each hour, each species, and each day.
• Quickly display species composition in an interactive pie chart.
• Find records and edit them with a tap.

New Administrator Dashboard

• Edit Your Data
  Review and edit your observations and metadata from your computer or phone.
• Add and Edit Questions in Your Projects
  Need to add a new question or change your answers? Now you can point, click, and save your changes in seconds.
• Add and Edit Species in Your Taxonomies
  Add a new spuh or new questions for a species using the Taxonomy Manager.
• Configure Your Public Outreach Pages
  Add, remove, or rearrange sections on your public pages.
• Configure Focus Species and Species Buttons on the Mobile App
• Export Your Data
• Invite New Users
• Manage Your Team

Click Here to Try the Dashboard Yourself

All of Your Research on Dunkadoo

Add New Projects

• Setup new questions and metadata in minutes.
• Add species buttons and create your list of focus species.
• Activate a public page to share your research.
• Add your team.

Add New Taxonomies

• Copy a standard taxonomy, like eBird, and modify it for your research, or start with a new taxonomy from scratch.
• Add or change attributes for species.
• Add species questions that will appear in the Mobile App when that species is observed.
• Need a different base taxonomy? Contact our support team for help getting your taxonomy imported at support@dunkadoo.org.

Updates Like Magic

• Edits to your data on the web are synced to the Mobile App, and changes on the Mobile App are immediately available online.
• Edit your Project while your research is underway. Your team can start collecting data with your new protocol – as soon as they can find some internet!
• New species, attributes, and species questions are ready for data collection as soon as you hit save.

Click Here to See a Full List of Dunkadoo’s Features

Our experience supporting environmental research over the last four years has given us an appreciation for how unpredictable fieldwork can be.

When you’re working with a standardized taxonomy and protocol, compiling spreadsheets and databases is pretty straightforward. You have columns that hold all of your data for each row of records, and you add more rows as you collect more data. Each column corresponds to a type of data that is collected for each record. When you have to build a system that can handle any taxonomy and protocol that your partners can dream up, it gets harder!

Traditionally, making this work meant that you needed to force everyone to follow the same protocol and use the same taxonomy. That way you can use the same table and list of species for everyone. More modern systems now allow you more flexibility so long as you lock in your protocol before you start collecting data. This provides more flexibility by creating a table or custom set of parameters for each project, but it is very difficult to make changes to the underlying protocol or taxonomy.

We work with our partners before the start of every project to try to get everything perfect before their teams go into the field. Despite everyone’s best efforts, we haven’t had a single project in the last four years where everything went just as expected. This challenged us to engineer a system that would allow our partners to make changes to their taxonomies, protocols, and data while the project is underway. This groundbreaking technology would directly benefit our partners and allow more researchers to start collecting their data digitally.

Today we are announcing the release of Project Spooky Action. Albert Einstein was famously skeptical of quantum theory and dubbed the phenomenon known as quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance.” Basically, an entangled particle instantly changes when its partner changes, even when they’re light-years apart. If you’re interested in learning more about the origin of our code name, click here for a great video explaining the physics.

While we don’t use any quantum entanglement in our solution, we picked the code name because our update now allows you to dynamically update your research and remotely manage what’s being used in the field. This is a huge deal for navigating the ever changing landscape of fieldwork!

Remotely Managed Protocols and Taxonomies

Our new update allows project managers to dynamically update their research protocols while research is underway:

• Add, remove, and modify species from your taxonomy
• Make changes to your field biologists’ data during QC and propagate those updates to their tablets
• Change your observation and metadata questions
• Switch to a different tablet and access all of your past observations and metadata

Each time your team closes and opens the app, their projects and taxonomies are synchronized with the server.

Case Study – Millersville University

Professor Aaron Haines leads the Applied Conservation Lab at Millersville University where he is training the next generation of migration counters. Working with Dr. Laurie Goodrich and Hawk Mountain Santuary, Dr. Haines and his students have established a new hawk count site at their university.

After beginning the research, their team inquired about conducting a sub-study on local species in addition to their research on migratory raptors.

Normally, modifying an ongoing study wouldn’t be possible, but using our new functionality, we were able to update their taxonomy, update their existing observations, and synchronize it with their tablet without skipping a beat!

You can see Millersville’s data here:

Millersville University Applied Conservation Lab Hawk Count

Engaging Visualizations

Every project page features charts and information that tell your story and share your research.

• Watch a live chart that streams data from your counters to your fans in under 15 seconds
• Explore the changing species composition over the course of your season with an interactive pie chart
• Dig into daily and hourly counts with intuitive charts and tables
• Check the counter’s forecast featuring weather like cloud cover, precipitation, and wind direction
• Highlight your target species using custom lists
• View your data from anywhere with an interface optimized for mobile devices

Check Out Ongoing Spring 2017 Count Sites

• Hawk Count – Whitefish Point Bird Observatory
• Waterbird Count – Mackinac Straits Raptor Watch
• Hawk Count – Mackinac Straits Raptor Watch
• Hawk Count – Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
• Hawk Count – Millersville University

Upcoming Spring Site

• April 15 – Waterbird Count – Whitefish Point Bird Observatory

Find Links to All of Our Featured Projects

Dunkadoo Projects

Get Discovered

Like you, we think that environmental research is exciting!

To highlight your research in a fun and engaging way, we’ve developed the Fireworks Map. On the homepage of Dunkadoo, we replay the most recent day of data. Starting at the first sighting of the day, the map quickly replays everything that was seen until it catches up with the present time. Once caught up, you can watch the pulse of migration nationwide in real-time.

This map is a great way for the public to discover your research. Every observation posted to the map includes a link to visit your research page.

Check Out the Fireworks Map

The Software

Dunkadoo provides non-profit conservation organizations with FREE software that runs on tablets and on the web.

• Flexible study design to meet your needs
  • Custom questions for every sighting
  • Custom metadata
• Custom taxonomies
  • Import your organization’s taxonomy
  • Custom questions on the tablet for every species
• Tablet software is designed to be easy to use in the field
• Download your data from the web in standard formats like CSV
• Live broadcast is optional and available if you have internet access at the count site