CitSci.org is a global citizen science software platform and support organization housed at Colorado State University. The mission of CitSci is to help people do high quality citizen science by amplifying impacts and outcomes. This platform hosts over one thousand projects and a diverse volunteer base that has amassed over one million observations of the natural world, focused on biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability. It is a custom platform built using open source components including: PostgreSQL, Symfony, Vue.js, with React Native for the mobile apps. CitSci sets itself apart from other Citizen Science platforms through the flexibility in the types of projects it supports rather than having a singular focus. This flexibility allows projects to define their own datasheets and methodologies. The diversity of programs we host motivated us to take a founding role in the design of the PPSR Core, a set of global, transdisciplinary data and metadata standards for use in Public Participation in Scientific Research (Citizen Science) projects. Through an international partnership between the Citizen Science Association, European Citizen Science Association, and Australian Citizen Science Association, the PPSR team and associated standards enable interoperability of citizen science projects, datasets, and observations. Here we share our experience over the past 10+ years of supporting biodiversity research both as developers of the CitSci.org platform and as stewards of, and contributors to, the PPSR Core standard. Specifically, we share details about: the origin, development, and informatics infrastructure for CitSci our support for biodiversity projects such as population and community surveys our experiences in platform interoperability through PPSR Core working with the Zooniverse, SciStarter, and CyberTracker data quality data sharing goals and use cases. the origin, development, and informatics infrastructure for CitSci our support for biodiversity projects such as population and community surveys our experiences in platform interoperability through PPSR Core working with the Zooniverse, SciStarter, and CyberTracker data quality data sharing goals and use cases. We conclude by sharing overall successes, limitations, and recommendations as they pertain to trust and rigor in citizen science data sharing and interoperability. As the scientific community moves forward, we show that Citizen Science is a key tool to enabling a systems-based approach to ecosystem problems.
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Citizen Science Amplification
We introduce the idea of Citizen Scientist Amplification applying the method to data gathered from the top 10 contributing citizen scientists on the Supernova Hunters project. We take a novel approach to avail of the complementary strengths of deep learning and citizen science achieving results that are competitive with experts.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1835530
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10206942
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- HCOMP 2019
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 126
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Building community with rural and underrepresented groups has been a challenge in the field of citizen science. At the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a team of scientists, educators, Extension professionals, and evaluators have joined efforts to take on this challenge across Alaska. The goals for Arctic Harvest-Public Participation in Scientific Research are to: 1) investigate how shifts in environmental conditions affect the fate of subsistence berries and timing of berry loss from plants in fall and winter across Alaska; and 2) improve the participation in and effectiveness of citizen science across diverse audiences, particularly at high latitudes where a high proportion of communities have populations underrepresented in STEM. We present the assets that collaboration across a land grant university brought to the table, and the Winterberry Citizen Science program design elements we have developed to engage our 1080+ volunteer berry citizen scientists ages three through elder across urban and rural, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and formal and informal learning settings. Our interdisciplinary team developed and implemented a program that provides in-person or online support for berry monitoring and data collection, and accommodates different age levels and settings. We also developed and tested an innovative program model that weaves storytelling throughout the citizen science learning cycle, from berries stories from the larger community, to stories of the citizen science process, to stories developed from berry data being collected and applied to future scenarios in a changing climate. The variety of program modifications we created have been highly effective helping reach a variety of settings and age levels. In both informal and formal learning environments in our first two years of the program we have had 568 pre-K and elementary-aged (age 3-12), 424 secondary-aged (age 12-18) youth participants and 107 adults (ages 18+), with 44% of participants coming from groups underrepresented in STEM, and 100% of groups completing berry monitoring throughout the fall. These results highlight the importance of designing the citizen science program with cultural relevance, program delivery options, and relationships between participants and scientists, while remaining committed to making a substantial scientific contribution.more » « less
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Citizen scientist efforts, wherein members of the public who are not professional scientists participate in active research, have been shown to effectively engage the public in STEM fields and result in valuable data, essential to answering pressing research questions. However, most citizen scientist efforts have been centered in colleges of science, and a limited number have crossed into research areas important to chemical engineering fields. In this work we report on the results of a project to recruit high school and middle school students across Utah’s Salt Lake Valley as citizen scientists and potential engineering students who work in partnership with chemical engineering researchers in an effort to create a distributed online network of air quality sensors. Middle and high school students were trained by undergraduate mentors to monitor and maintain their own outdoor air quality sensor with the help of teaching materials that were co-developed with Breathe Utah, a local community group concerned with air quality. With the help of these tailored teaching modules, students learned about the science behind air quality research and the difficulties common to physical measurements to better prepare them to analyze their data. Once trained, students are expected to become semi-independent researchers in charge of monitoring and maintaining their piece of a larger air quality map. We describe in this work the hurdles inherent in citizen science engagement within a chemical engineering research program and the means to address them. We describe successful means of engaging classrooms, training citizen scientists, obtaining faculty buy-in within the confines of state curricular demands, and addressing school administration concerns. With this model, we have directly engaged over 1,000 high school and over 3,000 middle school students. The project has resulted in a growing network of citizen-maintained sensors that contributes to a real-time air quality map. Student scientists may also use the sensors to participate in active research or conduct science fair projects. Student response to this citizen scientist project, where it may be measured, has been enthusiastic and almost wholly positive.more » « less
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Abstract Citizen science involves the public in science to investigate research questions. Although citizen science facilitates learning in informal educational settings, little is known about its use or effects in postsecondary (college or university) settings. Using a literature review and a survey, we describe how and why citizen science is being used in postsecondary courses, as well as the impacts on student learning. We found that citizen science is used predominantly in biologically related fields, at diverse types of institutions, to improve student engagement and expose students to authentic research. Considerable anecdotal evidence supporting improved student learning from these experiences exists, but little empirical evidence exists to warrant any conclusion. Therefore, there is a need to rigorously assess the relationship between citizen science participation and postsecondary student learning. We highlight considerations for instructors planning to incorporate citizen science and for citizen science projects wanting to facilitate postsecondary use.
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As the scientific community, like society more broadly, reckons with long-standing challenges around accessibility, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, we would be wise to pay attention to issues and lessons emerging in debates around citizen science. When practitioners first placed the modifier “citizen” on science, they intended to signify an inclusive variant within the scientific enterprise that enables those without formal scientific credentials to engage in authoritative knowledge production (1). Given that participants are overwhelmingly white adults, above median income, with a college degree (2, 3), it is clear that citizen science is typically not truly an egalitarian variant of science, open and available to all members of society, particularly those underrepresented in the scientific enterprise. Some question whether the term “citizen” itself is a barrier to inclusion, with many organizations rebranding their programs as “community science.” But this co-opts a term that has long referred to distinct, grassroots practices of those underserved by science and is thus not synonymous with citizen science. Swapping the terms is not a benign action. Our goal is not to defend the term citizen science, nor provide a singular name for the field. Rather, we aim to explore what the field, and the multiple publics it serves, might gain or lose by replacing the term citizen science and the potential repercussions of adopting alternative terminology (including whether a simple name change alone would do much to improve inclusion).more » « less
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