Help - Conservation Needs Assessments

Adding a new assessment

To add a new assessment, you must first login, and then click “Add Assessments” at the top of the page. You will then see “Add or Update Assessments”.

Select the country and/or enter the species name (common or scientific) that you wish to add an assessment for and then find your species in the list. If the species you wish to add an assessment for is not included in the species list, or its distribution does not include the country you wish to add an assessment for, please contact the administrators (info@ConservationNeeds.org) and ask for it to be added.

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If any assessments already exist for the species, you can view them by clicking on the hyperlinked species name. You can go back to the results of your species search by using the back arrow (←) in your browser ribbon to return to the previous page. To add a new assessment for that species, click “Add” in the far right column which will take you to the “Create Assessment” page. When the Create Assessment page loads, check in the species information section at the top of the page that you have selected the right species, in the right country.

Basic information for the species including scientific and common name, country, Order, Family, IUCN Global and IUCN National Red List status, distribution and Evolutionary Distinctiveness (EDGE) score are already included in the data. The assessment pages also include photos of the species from the AmphibiaWeb library (if images exist) and a link to the AmphibiaWeb species account for the species (if one exists). The page also includes a link to the IUCN Red List assessment (if one exists), taking you to the IUCN Red List assessment page for that species, and a View Map icon that is a link to the IUCN Red List distribution map.

The assessment is divided into seven categories of questions that are noted in green boxes along the top of the data entry section. After answering questions for each topic (note that the title of the current open topic is in a white font), click on the next topic to show the page with those questions.

You can save the assessment at any time by clicking the “Save Assessment” button even if you haven’t completed your assessment. You may need to continue on another day or to look up some references for further information, so be sure to save your draft assessment prior to leaving the program. Incomplete assessments will show up on your My Dashboard page each time you log in, prompting you to complete those assessments.

If your area of expertise is primarily amphibians in the field and if you are unsure of past ex situ conservation efforts for a particular species (Section Five - Ex situ activity), please contact someone with appropriate expertise in ex situ amphibian programs for their advice. A list of national and regional zoo and aquarium associations is available on the Where can I find more information? page.

In addition to answering the 20 assessment questions for each species, adding supporting comments for each of the answers you have chosen will be very helpful for all users of the assessment data, and assessors' comments will be included in the final assessment reports, support your assessment choices with appropriate comments for each question.

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An excellent example assessment is for the Golden Mantella (Mantella aurantiaca) in Madagascar, by Devin Edmonds. This assessment includes good comments to support the decisions made by the assessor.

When you have answered all the questions to the best of your knowledge, even if there are some questions that you are not able to answer, you should then check the box for “Mark my assessment as complete” and click the “Save Assessment” button.

Your completed assessment will then be reviewed by the appropriate National Facilitator for approval. Until the new assessment is marked as complete and approved, it will not be publicly available in any of the national or global assessment reports, however all assessments will be visible to all assessors and national facilitators from the Add Assessments page.

If you have added an assessment by mistake, you can click the “Delete” link to delete the assessment. Note that this is not reversible, and a deleted assessment cannot be retrieved. It is usually better to edit an assessment rather than delete it.

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