Of Citizens and Scientists: Preface to Special Issue on Learning and Creativity in Citizen Science

How to render sensory memory? In this article, I speculate on the possibilities of textural methods which attend closely to textile forms, specifically embroidery, as a way to explore this enduring question in multimodal research. To open up concerns about bodily relations between humans, as well as the more-than-human bodies we share worlds with, this article focuses on sensory memory fragments of encounters with the microbial conglomerations of sourdough bread starter. I offer three bubbling, sour-sweet texts: 1) an archived auto-ethnographic account of learning how to make a sourdough starter; 2) a social-media inspired piece on the sticky home archives of quarantine; and 3) a future speculative citizen science project. These fragments co-exist with microbes I have embroidered on ancient linens. From the tangy strings of sourdough histories, and the tangled threads in cloth I draw concrete methodological suggestions for new directions in textural research projects, such as material fieldnotes and crafted data. In doing so, I join other authors in this special issue in the call for multimodal forms of ethnographic storytelling about sensory memory, in this case one that attends not only to messy entanglements with bodies but also their textural, material, layered histories extending into the depth of their surfaces.

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Creativity and Learning in Citizen Cyberscience – Lessons from the Citizen Cyberlab Summit

Human Computation ◽

10.15346/hc.v3i1.3 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Eglė Marija Ramanauskaitė ◽

Mordechai Haklay

Keyword(s):

Citizen Science ◽

Current Issue ◽

Special Issue ◽

Self Development ◽

Different Types ◽

Design For Learning ◽

Main Medium ◽

The Common ◽

Work Done

This article summarizes the Citizen Cyberlab (CCL) Summit, which took place at University of Geneva on 17-18th September 2015, and introduces the special issue on “Learning and Creativity in Citizen Science”. As the final event of a 3-year EU FP7 CCL project, the Summit sought to disseminate project results and reflect on the issue of citizen science (CS) as a participatory environment where opportunities for self-development and various types of creativity can arise. A number of interesting themes emerged at the intersection of the work presented by project collaborators and external partners, including the different types of creativity that are evident in CS, the role of the community as the main medium for innovation and participant learning to occur, and the common challenges concerning the design, initiation and management of CS projects.The current issue presents work done during the CCL project, as well as external project contributions, for which the main focus is on learning and creativity in CS. The set of articles addresses diverse aspects of the topic, ranging from empirical research on the phenomena themselves, to tools, platforms and frameworks developed specifically for citizen cyberscience (CCS) with creativity and learning in mind, and distinct CS cases where these phenomena manifest in previously undescribed and unexpected ways. We hope that the issue will be useful to researchers and practitioners who aim to study, evaluate or design for learning and creativity in a range of CCS projects.

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Special issue: Community and citizen science

California Agriculture ◽

10.3733/ca.2021a0003 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 75 (1) ◽

pp. 5-7

Author(s):

Ryan Meyer ◽

Sabrina Drill ◽

Christopher Jadallah

Keyword(s):

Citizen Science ◽

Special Issue

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ECSA Special Issue

Journal of Science Communication ◽

10.22323/2.20060501 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 20 (06) ◽

pp. E

Author(s):

Susanne Hecker ◽

Mordechai Haklay ◽

Enrico M. Balli ◽

Tim Woods

Keyword(s):

Citizen Science ◽

Conference Report ◽

Special Edition ◽

Special Issue ◽

Diverse Range ◽

The Third ◽

Supplementary Material ◽

Poster Presentations ◽

Informal Settings

Over 500 delegates took part in the third international ECSA conference in September 2020. Across 30 sessions, as well as keynote talks, e-poster presentations and more informal settings, they discussed and debated a diverse range of subjects related to citizen science. This special edition of ‘JCOM’ brings together some of the central themes that were under the spotlight at ECSA 2020. Since ECSA 2020 has been one of the first examples of a conference that moved completely online, and it has been considered a big success, we also include the Conference Report, as supplementary material with this editorial.

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Users and peers. From citizen science to P2P science

Journal of Science Communication ◽

10.22323/2.09010501 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 09 (01) ◽

pp. E ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Alessandro Delfanti

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Public Participation ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Knowledge Production ◽

Scientific Practices ◽

Special Issue ◽

Web Tools ◽

Lay People ◽

Scientific Institutions ◽

Scientific Knowledge Production

This introduction presents the essays belonging to the JCOM special issue on User-led and peer-to-peer science. It also draws a first map of the main problems we need to investigate when we face this new and emerging phenomenon. Web tools are enacting and facilitating new ways for lay people to interact with scientists or to cooperate with each other, but cultural and political changes are also at play. What happens to expertise, knowledge production and relations between scientific institutions and society when lay people or non-scientists go online and engage in scientific activities? From science blogging and social networks to garage biology and open tools for user-led research, P2P science challenges many assumptions about public participation in scientific knowledge production. And it calls for a radical and perhaps new kind of openness of scientific practices towards society.

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Special Issue Editorial: Crowd AI for Good

Human Computation ◽

10.15346/hc.v8i2.131 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Frank O. Ostermann ◽

Laure Kloetzer ◽

Marisa Ponti ◽

Sven Schade

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Human Computation ◽

Special Issue ◽

Community Activities ◽

New Directions

This special issue editorial of Human Computation on the topic "Crowd AI for Good" motivates explorations at the intersection of artificial intelligence and citizen science, and introduces a set of papers that exemplify related community activities and new directions in the field.

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Editorial on the Citizen Science and Geospatial Capacity Building

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi10110741 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 741

Author(s):

Sultan Kocaman ◽

Sameer Saran ◽

Murat Durmaz ◽

Senthil Kumar

Keyword(s):

Capacity Building ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Open Data ◽

Open Science ◽

Object Identification ◽

Future Research ◽

Special Issue ◽

Data Practices ◽

Efficient Information ◽

Application Fields

This article introduces the Special Issue on “Citizen Science and Geospatial Capacity Building” and briefly evaluates the future trends in this field. This Special Issue was initiated for emphasizing the importance of citizen science (CitSci) and volunteered geographic information (VGI) in various stages of geodata collection, processing, analysis and visualization; and for demonstrating the capabilities and advantages of both approaches. The topic falls well within the main focus areas of ISPRS Commission V on Education and Outreach. The articles collected in the issue have shown the enormously wide application fields of geospatial technologies, and the need of CitSci and VGI support for efficient information extraction and synthesizing. They also pointed out various problems encountered during these processes. The needs and future research directions in this subject can broadly be categorized as; (a) data quality issues especially in the light of big data; (b) ontology studies for geospatial data suited for diverse user backgrounds, data integration, and sharing; (c) development of machine learning and artificial intelligence based online tools for pattern recognition and object identification using existing repositories of CitSci and VGI projects; and (d) open science and open data practices for increasing the efficiency, decreasing the redundancy, and acknowledgement of all stakeholders.

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