Do Ecological or Molecular Biological Citizen Science Projects Affect the Perceptions of Undergraduate Students Toward Pursuing Future Citizen Science?

<p>Data collection via mobile software applications is playing an increasingly important role in Citizen Science projects. When developing such applications, it is important to consider both the requirements of the scientists interested in data collection and the needs of the citizen scientists who contribute data. Citizens and participating scientists therefore ideally work together when conceptualizing, designing, and testing such applications (co-design). In this way, both sides - scientists and citizens - can contribute their expectations, desires, knowledge, and engagement at an early stage, thereby improving the utility and acceptance of the resulting applications. How such a co-design process must and can be meaningfully designed depends very much on (1) the interests, skills and background knowledge of the project participants, (2) the complexity and type of the data collection methodology to be implemented, and (3) the time, financial and legal conditions under which the software is developed.</p><p>In our contribution, we address this point. We present two methodologies that enable the joint design and implementation of software applications for mobile data collection in citizen science projects. These represent quite different best practice approaches that emerged during the development of mobile applications on the topics of light pollution and meteor observation in our Citizen Science project Nachtlicht-B&#252;HNE. We examine and compare the resulting methods with respect to their suitability for use under different conditions and thus provide future citizen science projects based on participatory developed mobile applications with decision support for the design of their co-design approach. We shed light on the two co-design methods with respect to the following criteria, among others: possible types of contributions by volunteers, requirements on expertise and knowledge of the contributors, flexibility of the method with respect to changing requirements, possibilities with respect to the design of complex data collection methods, costs incurred and time required for the implementation of the methodology.</p>

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Digital Citizen Science for Responding to COVID-19 Crisis: Experiences from Iran

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18189666 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (18) ◽

pp. 9666

Author(s):

Hossein Vahidi ◽

Mohammad Taleai ◽

Wanglin Yan ◽

Rajib Shaw

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Public Health Emergency ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Scientific Practices ◽

Global Public Health ◽

Science Projects ◽

Future Citizen

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has so far been the most severe global public health emergency in this century. Generally, citizen science can provide a complement to authoritative scientific practices for responding to this highly complex biological threat and its adverse consequences. Several citizen science projects have been designed and operationalized for responding to COVID-19 in Iran since the infection began. However, these projects have mostly been overlooked in the existing literature on citizen science. This research sheds light on the most significant online citizen science projects to respond to the COVID-19 crisis in Iran. Furthermore, it highlights some of the opportunities and challenges associated with the strengths and weaknesses of these projects. Moreover, this study captures and discusses some considerable insights and lessons learned from the failures and successes of these projects and provides solutions to overcome some recognized challenges and weaknesses of these projects. The outcomes of this synthesis provide potentially helpful directions for current and future citizen science projects—particularly those aiming to respond to biological disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Citizens, Scientists, and Enablers: A Tripartite Model for Citizen Science Projects

Diversity ◽

10.3390/d13070309 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (7) ◽

pp. 309

Author(s):

Rhian A. Salmon ◽

Samuel Rammell ◽

Myfanwy T. Emeny ◽

Stephen Hartley

Keyword(s):

Case Studies ◽

Nature Of Science ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Science Communication ◽

Tripartite Model ◽

Science Project ◽

Science Projects ◽

Emerging Issues ◽

Citizen Science Project

In this paper, we focus on different roles in citizen science projects, and their respective relationships. We propose a tripartite model that recognises not only citizens and scientists, but also an important third role, which we call the ‘enabler’. In doing so, we acknowledge that additional expertise and skillsets are often present in citizen science projects, but are frequently overlooked in associated literature. We interrogate this model by applying it to three case studies and explore how the success and sustainability of a citizen science project requires all roles to be acknowledged and interacting appropriately. In this era of ‘wicked problems’, the nature of science and science communication has become more complex. In order to address critical emerging issues, a greater number of stakeholders are engaging in multi-party partnerships and research is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. Within this context, explicitly acknowledging the role and motivations of everyone involved can provide a framework for enhanced project transparency, delivery, evaluation and impact. By adapting our understanding of citizen science to better recognise the complexity of the organisational systems within which they operate, we propose an opportunity to strengthen the collaborative delivery of both valuable scientific research and public engagement.

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Citizens of the future

Science Fiction Film and Television ◽

10.3828/sfftv.2021.10 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 115-144

Author(s):

Colin Milburn ◽

Melissa Wills

Keyword(s):

Video Games ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Scientific Research ◽

Social Progress ◽

Responsible Innovation ◽

Science Projects ◽

Technical Innovations ◽

Research Questions ◽

Utopian Thought

Over the last decade, a variety of ‘citizen science’ projects have turned to video games and other tools of gamification to enrol participants and to encourage public engagement with scientific research questions. This article examines the significance of sf in the field of citizen science, focusing on projects such as Eyewire, Be a Martian!, Sea Hero Quest, Play to Cure: Genes in Space, Forgotten Island and the ‘Project Discovery’ experiments in EVE Online. The sf stories that frame these projects often allegorise the neoliberal assumptions and immaterial labour practices of citizen science, even while seeming to hide or disguise them. At the same time, the fictional frames enable players to imagine social and technical innovations that, while not necessarily achievable in the present, nevertheless point to a future of democratic science, social progress and responsible innovation - blips of utopian thought from the zones of crowdsourced labour.

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The role of citizen science in addressing grand challenges in food and agriculture research

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2018.1977 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 285 (1891) ◽

pp. 20181977 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

S. F. Ryan ◽

N. L. Adamson ◽

A. Aktipis ◽

L. K. Andersen ◽

R. Austin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Communities ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Food Systems ◽

The United States ◽

Food Science ◽

Grand Challenges ◽

Food Research ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Science Projects ◽

Agriculture And Food

The power of citizen science to contribute to both science and society is gaining increased recognition, particularly in physics and biology. Although there is a long history of public engagement in agriculture and food science, the term ‘citizen science’ has rarely been applied to these efforts. Similarly, in the emerging field of citizen science, most new citizen science projects do not focus on food or agriculture. Here, we convened thought leaders from a broad range of fields related to citizen science, agriculture, and food science to highlight key opportunities for bridging these overlapping yet disconnected communities/fields and identify ways to leverage their respective strengths. Specifically, we show that (i) citizen science projects are addressing many grand challenges facing our food systems, as outlined by the United States National Institute of Food and Agriculture, as well as broader Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations Development Programme, (ii) there exist emerging opportunities and unique challenges for citizen science in agriculture/food research, and (iii) the greatest opportunities for the development of citizen science projects in agriculture and food science will be gained by using the existing infrastructure and tools of Extension programmes and through the engagement of urban communities. Further, we argue there is no better time to foster greater collaboration between these fields given the trend of shrinking Extension programmes, the increasing need to apply innovative solutions to address rising demands on agricultural systems, and the exponential growth of the field of citizen science.

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Affordances and tensions in recording bird observations: how coordinators and volunteers perceive and experience citizen science in birding

Journal of Science Communication ◽

10.22323/2.20020210 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 20 (02) ◽

pp. A10

Author(s):

Helen Verploegen ◽

Wessel Ganzevoort ◽

Riyan van den Born

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Methods ◽

Data Sharing ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Qualitative Interviews ◽

Future Design ◽

Science Projects ◽

The Future

Digital citizen science projects differ greatly in their goals and design. Tensions arise when coordinators' design choices and conceptions of citizen science conflict with users' motivations and expectations. In this paper, we use a combination of qualitative methods to gain new insights into the ways citizen science is understood and implemented digitally. This includes a study into the affordances of two citizen science portals for bird observations, and qualitative interviews with users and coordinators of the portals. This reveals tensions related to data sharing, community hierarchies, and communicated expectations. Awareness of these tensions can benefit the future design of online citizen science projects.

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Citizen Science, Communication, and Expertise: An Examination of the Port Townsend Marine Science Center's Plastics Project

10.31230/osf.io/ehqrc ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Nicholas Wehner

Keyword(s):

Consumer Behavior ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Science Communication ◽

Puget Sound ◽

Marine Debris ◽

Communication Media ◽

Marine Science ◽

Project Staff ◽

Educational Benefits ◽

Science Projects

Citizen science projects have the opportunity to educate participants about environmental issues being studied first-hand and often in the field. The Port Townsend Marine Science Center’s Plastics Project utilized volunteers to collect and sort through samples of sand on beaches to estimate the abundance of plastic marine debris on beaches throughout the Puget Sound of Washington State. Volunteers were surveyed to determine if educational benefits were evident, if participants were educating others and with what frequency, what communication media were used and preferred, and who participants identified as experts. All participants reported being better educated about plastic marine and most reported changes in their consumer behavior. Participants who educated others on a regular basis also attended environmental and plastic marine debris-focused events, and interacted with experts regularly. No other demographic variables examined were able to distinguish more active educators from less active. Participants used and preferred email and in-person communication media while social media and postal mail were among the least utilized. Participants identified a wide array of experts, including university scientists and Plastics Project staff. Citizen science projects may be beneficial at inducing consumer behavior changes and educating participants, and should take care to explore lectures and other in-person communication approaches to increase opportunities for learning. Participants’ wide perception of expertise should be taken advantage of to increase opportunities for participant-expert interaction and address participant questions and concerns.

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Citizen Science in Human Medicine and the Use of Software-Systems: A Rapid Scoping Review

10.3233/shti210557 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jannik Schaaf ◽

Michaela Neff ◽

Joerg Scheidt ◽

Michael Steglich ◽

Holger Storf

Keyword(s):

Citizen Science ◽

Rare Diseases ◽

Scoping Review ◽

Genetic Research ◽

Research Process ◽

Human Medicine ◽

Software Systems ◽

Ministry Of Education ◽

Research Areas ◽

Science Projects

Citizen science allows involving interested citizen in the entire research process in science. In the past, various citizen science projects have been performed in different research fields, especially in human medicine. We conducted a rapid scoping review to determine which citizen projects in human medicine already used software-based systems to engage citizens in the research process. Furthermore, we analysed which of the software-systems are publicly available, especially in the field of rare diseases, how citizens can participate using those tools and whether the usability was rated by the participants. To get insights for our project “SelEe (Seltene Erkrankungen bürgerwissenschaftlich erforschen)”, which is a citizen science project in rare diseases funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), we aimed to identify projects in this research area. We searched PubMed for articles between 2011 and 2021 and performed a title- and abstract screening, as well as a full-text screening. Finally, 12 studies were identified in different research areas like public health, genetic research and infectious diseases. We could not identify any study directly associated with rare diseases. None of the studies investigated usability of those systems. Furthermore, five publicly available citizen science software-systems were identified. Three of them are general systems that allow creating, operating, managing citizen science projects and including citizens in the research process. In further investigations, we will check and compare these systems, if they are appropriate for use in our SelEe-project.

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