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81 publications found

Jan 17, 2019 Article
From citizen science to citizen action: analysing the potential for a digital platform to cultivate attachments to nature

by Nirwan Sharma, Sam Greaves, Advaith Siddharthan, Helen Anderson, Annie Robinson, Laura Colucci-Gray, Agung T. Wibowo, Helen Bostock, Andrew Salisbury, Stuart Roberts, David Slawson and Rene van der Wal

Identifying private gardens in the U.K. as key sites of environmental engagement, we look at how a longer-term online citizen science programme facilitated the development of new and personal attachments of nature. These were visible through new or renewed interest in wildlife-friendly gardening practices and attitudinal shifts in a large proportion of its participants. Qualitative and quantitative data, collected via interviews, focus groups, surveys and logging of user behaviours, revealed that cultivating a fascination with species identification was key to both ‘helping nature’ and wider learning, with the programme creating a space where scientific and non-scientific knowledge could co-exist and reinforce one another.

Volume 18 • Issue 01 • 2019 • Special Issue: User Experience of Digital Technologies in Citizen Science, 2019

Jan 17, 2019 Article
Citizen science and the professional-amateur divide: lessons from differing online practices

by Liz Dowthwaite and James Sprinks

Online citizen science platforms increasingly provide types of infrastructural support previously only available to organisationally-based professional scientists. Other practices, such as creative arts, also exploit the freedom and accessibility afforded by the World Wide Web to shift the professional-amateur relationship. This paper compares communities from these two areas to show that disparate practices can learn from each other to better understand their users and their technology needs. Three major areas are discussed: mutual acknowledgement, infrastructural support, and platform specialisation. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of differing practices, and lessons that can be learnt for online citizen science platforms.

Volume 18 • Issue 01 • 2019 • Special Issue: User Experience of Digital Technologies in Citizen Science, 2019

Sep 26, 2018 Letter
Peer-reviewed publishing of results from Citizen Science projects

by Gabriele Gadermaier, Daniel Dörler, Florian Heigl, Stefan Mayr, Johannes Rüdisser, Robert Brodschneider and Christine Marizzi

Citizen science (CS) terms the active participation of the general public in scientific research activities. With increasing amounts of information generated by citizen scientists, best practices to go beyond science communication and publish these findings to the scientific community are needed. This letter is a synopsis of authors' personal experiences when publishing results from citizen science projects in peer-reviewed journals, as presented at the Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2018. Here, we address authors' selection criteria for publishing CS data in open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journals as well as barriers encountered during the publishing process. We also outline factors that influence the probability of publication using CS data, including 1) funding to cover publication costs; 2) quality, quantity and scientific novelty of CS data; 3) recommendations to acknowledge contributions of citizen scientists in scientific, peer-reviewed publications; 4) citizen scientists' preference of the hands-on experience over the product (publication) and 5) bias among scientists for certain data sources and the scientific jargon. These experiences show that addressing these barriers could greatly increase the rate of CS data included in scientific publications.

Volume 17 • Issue 03 • 2018

Aug 06, 2018 Article
Science created by crowds: a case study of science crowdfunding in Japan

by Yuko Ikkatai, Euan McKay and Hiromi M. Yokoyama

“Science crowdfunding” is a research funding system in which members of the public make small financial contributions towards a research project via the Internet. We compared the more common research process involving public research funding with science crowdfunding. In the former, academic-peer communities review the research carried out whereas the Crowd Community, an aggregation of backers, carries out this function in the latter. In this paper, we propose that science crowdfunding can be successfully used to generate “crowd-supported science” by means of this Crowd Community.

Volume 17 • Issue 03 • 2018

Feb 06, 2018 Article
Appealing to different motivations in a message to recruit citizen scientists: results of a field experiment

by Tae Kyoung Lee, Kevin Crowston, Mahboobeh Harandi, Carsten Østerlund and Grant Miller

This study examines the relative efficacy of citizen science recruitment messages appealing to four motivations that were derived from previous research on motives for participation in citizen-science projects. We report on an experiment (N=36,513) that compared the response to email messages designed to appeal to these four motives for participation. We found that the messages appealing to the possibility of contributing to science and learning about science attracted more attention than did one about helping scientists but that one about helping scientists generated more initial contributions. Overall, the message about contributing to science resulted in the largest volume of contributions and joining a community, the lowest. The results should be informative to those managing citizen-science projects.

Volume 17 • Issue 01 • 2018

Sep 20, 2017 Commentary
The changing face of expertise and the need for knowledge transfer

by Aleksandra Berditchevskaia, Cindy Regalado and Stephan Van Duin

New public participatory modes of practice are emerging in fields as diverse as politics, healthcare and research. In part, these DIY and citizen-led initiatives have gained momentum from the optimism of new technologies, which allow unprecedented access to previously inaccessible knowledge and tools. Equally, they are the result of a growing frustration with power hierarchies and systems that reinforce elites. Experts are increasingly regarded with suspicion as trust in public institutions is eroded and individuals begin to give more weight to personal accounts, and information shared within networks of peers. In this climate there is a critical need for improved knowledge transfer practices based on improved empathy, understanding and communication of shared values and motivations. In this session we questioned the role of expertise in a changing landscape of knowledge production and practice. Using the lens of science & technology communication and hands-on DIY practices, we explored how to move towards a more inclusive model of knowledge transfer, where different types of expertise are acknowledged and valued.

Volume 16 • Issue 04 • 2017

Sep 18, 2017 Article
Narratives as a mode of research evaluation in citizen science: understanding broader science communication impacts

by Natasha Constant and Liz Roberts

Science communicators develop qualitative and quantitative tools to evaluate the ‘impact’ of their work however narrative is rarely adopted as a form of evaluation. We posit narrative as an evaluative approach for research projects with a core science communication element and offer several narrative methods to be trialled. We use citizen science projects as an example of science communication research seeking to gain knowledge of participant-emergent themes via evaluations. Storied experience of participant involvement enhances understanding of context-based and often intangible processes, such as changing place-relations, values, and self-efficacy, by enabling a reflective space for critical-thinking and self-reflection.

Volume 16 • Issue 04 • 2017

Aug 24, 2017 Conference Review
Citizen science: an emerging professional field united in truth-seeking

by Joseph Roche and Nicola Davis

CONFERENCE: Citizen Science Association Conference, Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A., 17–20th May 2017

The second biennial Citizen Science Association Conference was held from the 17–20th of May 2017 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The conference is the biggest of its kind in the world and brought together more than 1,000 delegates for hundreds of conference presentations as well as workshops, panels, screenings, a hackathon and a citizen science festival. In this paper we review the history of the conference and outline the key events leading up to the 2017 conference.

Volume 16 • Issue 04 • 2017

Jun 21, 2017 Commentary
Making citizen science newsworthy in the era of big data

by Stuart Allan and Joanna Redden

This article examines certain guiding tenets of science journalism in the era of big data by focusing on its engagement with citizen science. Having placed citizen science in historical context, it highlights early interventions intended to help establish the basis for an alternative epistemological ethos recognising the scientist as citizen and the citizen as scientist. Next, the article assesses further implications for science journalism by examining the challenges posed by big data in the realm of citizen science. Pertinent issues include potential risks associated with data quality, access dynamics, the difficulty investigating algorithms, and concerns about certain constraints impacting on transparency and accountability.

Volume 16 • Issue 02 • 2017

Jun 21, 2017 Editorial
Science centres and science engagement activities as research facilities: blurring the frontiers between knowledge production and knowledge sharing

by Matteo Merzagora

The future challenges within science communication lie in a 'grey area' where the frontiers between production and sharing of knowledge are blurred. An area in which we can satisfy at the same time and within the same activity the autonomous interests of researchers and those of other stakeholders, including lay publics. Settings are emerging, where we can provide real contribution to scientific research and at the same time facilitate the publics in their process of hacking scientific knowledge to serve autonomously defined and often unpredictable functions. Some are linked to research institutes, others to science centres, others are precisely inbetween. This editorial explores why these special places are needed, and present some case studies, leading to the need of interpreting science culture centres as research facilities.

Volume 16 • Issue 02 • 2017