The participation of non-professionally trained people in so-called citizen science (CS) projects is a much discussed topic at the moment. Frequently, however, the contribution of citizens is limited to only a few narrow tasks. Focusing on an initiative dedicated to the study of the human microbiome, this paper describes such a case where citizen participation is limited to the provision of funding, samples, and personal data. Researchers opted for a crowdsourced approaches because other forms of funding and recruitment did not seem feasible. We argue that despite the narrow understanding of participation in the context of some CS projects, they can address some of the democratic concerns related to scientific knowledge creation. For example, CS and crowdsourcing can help to foster dialogue between researchers and publics, and increase the influence of citizens on research agenda setting.
Date of publication
Apr 20, 2016
Category:
Article
Crowdsourcing the Human Gut. Is crowdsourcing also 'citizen science'?
Volume 15Issue 032016Special Issue: Citizen Science, Part II, 2016 (PCST Stories / 2)
Also a part of:
Collection: Volume 15Issue 012016Special Issue: Citizen Science, Part I, 2016 (PCST Stories / 1)