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Abstract Citizen science is personal. Participation is contingent on the citizens’ connection to a topic or to interpersonal relationships meaningful to them. But from the peer-reviewed literature, scientists appear to have an acquisitive data-centered relationship with citizens. This has spurred ethical and pragmatic criticisms of extractive relationships with citizen scientists. We suggest five practical steps to shift citizen-science research from extractive to relational, reorienting the research process and providing reciprocal benefits to researchers and citizen scientists. By virtue of their interests and experience within their local environments, citizen scientists have expertise that, if engaged, can improve research methods and product design decisions. To boost the value of scientific outputs to society and participants, citizen-science research teams should rethink how they engage and value volunteers.
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VERA: Popularizing Science Through AI
Citizen scientists have the potential to expand scientific research. The virtual research assistant called VERA empowers citizen scientists to engage in environmental science in two ways. First, it automatically generates simulations based on the conceptual models of ecological phenomena for repeated testing and feedback. Second, it leverages the Encyclopedia of Life biodiversity knowledgebase to support the process of model construction and revision.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1636848
- PAR ID:
- 10093907
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- LNCS
- Volume:
- 10948
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 31-35
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93846-2_6
