Designcraft for experiments: Balcony Birdwatching

A set of remote exercises exploring experimental design for the life sciences. A total of three independent labs were done to focus on different design principles, sampling techniques, and taxa. Exercises are described in full in this open access manual entitled Designcraft for experiments. Data were collected by students in a third-year biology course offering at York University in Toronto, ON, Canada. Students collected the data and published individual datasets to figshare with a CCBY4.0 licensing. Data were then compiled for each lab including balcony birdwatching, backyard bioblitz, and solo surveys. The provenance of each independent observation in the compiled data was recognized by attribution to the initials of the primary data author including citation via DOI and link to figshare. Attribution CJL designed the experiments. Students in course offering collected, innovated, and published individual, primary datasets. SH and CJL reviewed the compiled data. Metadata Record-level year is the calendar year of work not term experiment describes the three experimental options in designcraft book source is either full experiment or pilot experiment rep is the replicate per experimental set location is the site name locally habitat is the ecological classification date is the calendar date for each observation