Identiplant: A Unique Tutor-led Online Botany Course

Identiplant is for those who want to get started with serious botany. It was created to take near beginners to an intermediate level with the help of an allocated Tutor, whose role is to guide students through the online course content (delivered through our in-house learning platform called Capsella) and provide feedback on submissions. Students are tasked with hunting for a number of common and widespread plant species through the seasons, in order to gain an understanding of the diagnostic features of the commonest plant families found in the UK. Students leave with a set of key skills allowing them to make further progress independently. This talk will discuss the challenges and benefits of delivering an online course to almost 300 students a year, across 5 countries, with the support of over 60 tutors.

Q&A with Dan Asaw

Dr Chantal Helm is the BSBI’s training co-ordinator responsible for FISC and Identiplant. She is also a terrestrial ecologist with field experience in South Africa and the UK, with a broad interest in natural history. After a decade in academia, Chantal now focusses on delivering local voluntary conservation projects, encouraging local biological recording, undertaking freelance bat surveys and supporting students as a visiting lecturer, alongside her part time BSBI role.

Is this course available to people who live outside Britain & Ireland?The course is only available to people within Britain and Ireland as we don’t have tutors outside of the UK and the plants that students would come across in other regions would vary from those found in Britain and Ireland. However, there is no reason why the course couldn’t be adapted to work in other regions if local tutors were recruited and the content was adapted for the plant diversity within that region.
Have BSBI had any discussions with other organisations about replicating this model for other taxonomic groups? We’ve not had any enquiries from other organisations about replicating the format and structure for other groups. Again, there is no reason why the course could not be adapted to work for other groups using the same methodology. The course content would need to be created from scratch and a network of tutors with the taxon-specific knowledge and skills would need to be recruited.
Have you considered creating a self-led version of Identiplant to cater for the demand if tutor availability is a limiting factor?
Yes, we really don’t want to disappoint those who can’t secure a space every year. We are working on trialling a less intensive foundational self-led version for this very reason and hope to be able to trial this with a select group next year (though this is not yet confirmed). A self-led version wouldn’t replace the tutor version but it could help us engage more people with botany.