Marine research
How a campaign works, from setting it up to the spreadsheet
Everything a marine park, a researcher or a conservation group needs to plan a Diveology campaign: what divers are asked and when, what you get back, and how divers are kept anonymous.
A campaign, start to finish
- Set it up in your partner portal: a name and a sentence or two on what it is for (divers see both), the start and end dates, up to 200 dive sites from the directory, questions from the question bank, up to 5 questions of your own, and up to 10 species to look out for. It stays a draft until you send it.
- Send it to Diveology. We read every campaign before it reaches divers, as its words do, usually within a day. We put it live, or ask for a change with a note saying what, and your portal's admins get an email either way.
- Divers answer. From the start date, every diver in the ocean survey who logs a dive at one of your sites is asked your questions as soon as they save the dive.
- Watch the answers. Your portal counts each question as answers come in, and the CSV download has every answer.
- It ends. On its end date, or when you stop it. Divers who log a dive late can still answer about its dates for 30 days after it ends. A campaign with answers stays in your portal, with its report.
A live campaign cannot be changed, so every answer is to the same questions. To ask something new, start another campaign.
The question bank
One set of questions for every campaign, in plain words, so answers compare across campaigns, sites and years. A campaign picks the ones it needs. A "none" answer, such as "None seen", cannot be ticked with anything else, and every question can be skipped.
The water
| Question | Answers divers choose from | CSV column |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility (one answer) | Under 3 m lt3, 3 to 5 m 3-5, 5 to 10 m 5-10, 10 to 20 m 10-20, Over 20 m gt20 | visibility |
| Current (one answer) | None none, Light light, Moderate moderate, Strong strong | current |
| The water (any that apply) | Clear, nothing unusual clear, Murky murky, An algal bloom algal-bloom, A jellyfish bloom jellyfish, A slick or discoloured water slick | water |
Coral and the reef
| Question | Answers divers choose from | CSV column |
|---|---|---|
| How much of the coral is pale or bleached (one answer) | None none, A little little, Up to a third third, Up to two thirds two-thirds, Most of it most, No coral here no-coral | bleaching |
| Coral damage (any that apply) | None seen none, Dead coral dead, Broken coral broken, Coral disease disease | coral-damage |
| Crown-of-thorns starfish (one answer) | None 0, One 1, 2 to 10 2-10, More than 10 gt10 | cots |
| Drupella snails (one answer) | None 0, A few few, Many many | drupella |
| Seaweed or slime covering the reef (one answer) | None none, A little little, Up to a third third, More than a third more | algae |
Pollution
| Question | Answers divers choose from | CSV column |
|---|---|---|
| Rubbish (any that apply) | None seen none, Plastic plastic, Fishing line fishing-line, Nets nets, A ghost net ghost-net, Cans or glass cans-glass, Other rubbish other | rubbish |
Animals
| Question | Answers divers choose from | CSV column |
|---|---|---|
| Animals in trouble (any that apply) | None seen none, Entangled entangled, Injured injured, Stranded or dead stranded | animals-trouble |
The categories follow what reef surveys already record, in plain words of our own. New questions are added for everyone when a campaign needs one that fits. Ask us.
Your own questions
For what the bank does not ask, a campaign can have up to 5 questions of its own:
- You write the question (up to 140 characters) and 2 to 8 answers (up to 60 each), and choose whether divers pick one answer or any that apply.
- Divers only pick, so nothing a diver types reaches you, or anyone.
- Ask about the dive and the site, never about the diver: no names, ages, contact details or health.
- We read them with the campaign, and divers see them after the bank's questions.
- In the CSV, each has a column named from its wording (
how_much_seagrass_did_you_see), and each answer a value from its words (some-of-it).
Species to look out for
Name up to 10 species from Diveology's sea life list of tens of thousands, searched by common or scientific name and shown to divers by the name used in your country. For each, divers say how many they saw (not seen, one, 2 to 10, more than 10) and, if they saw any, how it looked (healthy, injured, entangled, diseased, dead). "Not seen" is an answer too, so absence is recorded, not only sightings.
When divers are asked
- Who: divers who have joined the ocean survey in Diveology for iPhone. It is part of Diveology Premium, off until a diver turns it on.
- Which dives: a dive at one of your campaign's sites (the diver's site linked to that directory site), on a day within your dates.
- When: straight after they save the dive, or log it with a dive centre's code that fills in the site. The questions also wait on the dive's page, to answer or change later.
- Where: anywhere, signal or not. Live campaigns come down with the diver's logbook, and answers go up when the phone next syncs.
- How much: about a minute. Every answer is optional, and "Not now" answers later.
Diveology never tracks where a phone is: divers are asked because of the site they logged, not where they were.
Reports in your portal
- How many answers and how many divers.
- Each question's answers counted, with how many answered it.
- Each species' counts, and how they looked.
- Site by site, once three different divers have answered at a site; until then its answers count in the totals.
- Water temperature, lowest, median and highest, from dives with a dive computer, overall and for each site.
The download
A CSV with a row for each answer, from the campaign's page in your portal. Every download is recorded in your organisation's audit log, with who and when. An example, from a campaign at a pier:
date | observer | site | site_id | visibility | rubbish | how_much_seagrass_did_you_see | phyllopteryx_taeniolatus_count | phyllopteryx_taeniolatus_condition | water_temp_c |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-14 | 7f3a91c2d4 | Flinders Pier | 01a18643-… | 5-10 | fishing-line | some-of-it | 2-10 | healthy | 17.2 |
| 2026-11-14 | b81e04a6f9 | Flinders Pier | 01a18643-… | 5-10 | none | some-of-it | 1 | healthy | 17.0 |
| 2026-11-16 | 3c9d27e1a0 | (fewer than 3 divers) | lt3 | plastic;cans-glass | none-of-it | 0 |
date: the day of the dive, where it was dived. Never the time.observer: a random number for the diver that changes every year.siteandsite_id: the dive site and its directory id, or "(fewer than 3 divers)" until three different divers have answered there.- A column for each question (several answers are separated by
;), then a count and a condition column for each species, named by its scientific name. water_temp_c: from the diver's dive computer, empty for a dive logged without one.
Data quality: what to keep in mind
- Recreational observers. Divers are not trained surveyors. The questions use bands and plain categories they can answer reliably, and every answer can be skipped rather than guessed.
- Effort varies. Divers go where they like, so busy sites, weekends and good weather have more answers. Compare like with like, and use the number of answers and divers the report shows.
- One answer per dive. A diver answers once for each dive and campaign (answering again replaces it). Two buddies on the same dive answer separately, under different observer numbers.
- Temperatures. Only temperatures a dive computer recorded are used. Sensors differ between models and respond slowly, so treat them as a guide, as with any dive computer data.
- Leaving. A diver who leaves the survey or deletes their account stops adding answers. The answers they gave stay in reports and downloads under the same observer number, with nothing that leads back to them, so totals do not fall when someone leaves. Deleting a dive takes that dive's answers out.
Privacy and ethics
The ocean survey was designed so that no diver can be picked out from what you see:
- Consent. Divers join the survey themselves, and their yes is recorded with the date and the version of the privacy policy they agreed to. They can leave at any time, in the app; they are told when they join that answers already given stay in, with nothing that leads back to them.
- Anonymous. No names, email addresses or accounts; the day, not the time; a yearly random observer number; a site only once three divers have answered there.
- Nothing typed. Every answer, yours and ours, is picked from a list, so no diver can put anything personal in an answer.
- Kept in Australia. The answers are kept on our servers in Sydney, encrypted, with encrypted backups.
- Checked. We read every campaign before it reaches divers, its own questions included.
If your organisation needs ethics approval for a project using Diveology, we can describe all of this for your application. Write to support@diveology.com.au.
Using the answers
- Use them for research, management, teaching, reports and publication.
- Credit "Diveology divers" when you publish or present them.
- Never try to work out who a diver is.
- Do not sell the answers on.
Coming next
- A notification to divers when a campaign starts at a site in their logbook, a few a year at most.
- Choosing a campaign's sites on a map, or by drawing an area.
- A download in Darwin Core, for biodiversity databases.
- What divers report at a site, on the site's page for every diver to see.
Divers: help the reefs you dive
Join the ocean survey in Diveology for iPhone, with Premium. Coming soon to the App Store.