Editor’s Choice – Citizen Science Today

Editor’s Choice: Defining principles for mobile apps and platforms development in citizen science

Tue, 01 May 2018 18:00:45 +0000

Editor’s Choice: The focus of this paper is a summary of two workshops held to better understand the design and development principles for mobile or web-based citizen science platforms. The recommendations from the working groups are well worth reading – even if you think you know everything about developing citizen science projects! – LFF Abstract:...

Editor’s Choice: Contrasting the Views and Actions of Data Collectors and Data Consumers in a Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Project: Implications for Project Design and Management

Tue, 01 May 2018 18:00:43 +0000

Editor’s Choice: This paper points out that there is an oft-overlooked category of people interacting with citizen science projects – people who do not contribute to the data collection, but who nonetheless consume data and information related to the project. The questions are then posed – do these data consumers share the same characteristics as...

Happy New Year from Citizen Science Today

CST Editors, LFF & AWA — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 19:52:10 +0000

What a year we saw with 2017! Staying focused on the positive, it was a great year for citizen science. Here are just a few call-outs but all citizen scientists should immediately pat themselves on the back! We CAN do it and have fun at the same time. This year, the Citizen Science Association hosted...

Editor’s Choice: Is ‘grassroots’ citizen science a front for big business?

Philip Mirowski — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:00:55 +0000

Editor’s Choice: This is a rather provocative essay whose arguments are completely specious in many instances, and completely wrong in others, but has enough seeds of truth that it is worth pondering and acknowledging, and then considering much-needed rebuttals. –LFF– Excerpt: The very label ‘citizen science’ (as opposed to, say, ‘amateur’ or ‘extramural’) carries the unsubtle...

Editor’s Choice: Spot, log, map: Assessing a marine virtual citizen science program against Reed’s best practice for stakeholder participation in environmental management

Melissa Nursey-Bray, Robert Palmer, Gretta Pecl — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:00:49 +0000

Editor’s Choice: What resonated for me with this article is the conclusion that embedding data collection activities within a virtual citizen science application not only supported improved data collection for marine science but also provided better opportunities for volunteers to engage in a larger community that contributed to social learning. –LFF– Methods (excerpt): In this...

Editor’s Choice: The Biggest Collection of Spiders in Colorado is Built on Citizen Science

Entomology Today — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:00:28 +0000

Editor’s Choice: Peering into the pits of rotted stumps, poring over craggy tree bark, and most importantly, pausing. Patient and still, awaiting subtle movements that betray the presence of tiny, cryptic, eight-legged predators. A mantra in the nature museum field is “connect with nature,” an aspiration conjuring up images of vast landscapes or charismatic megafauna....

Editor’s Choice: On Bee-ing

Meredith Cornett — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 19:00:53 +0000

Editor’s Choice: And accompanying the more disheartening article about scientists’ attitudes towards citizen science, here is a small ray of hope where we hear about one scientist’s journey of accepting citizen science as a legitimate methodology through actual participation in a citizen science project. — LFF — Excerpt: For years I scoffed at the very...

Editor’s Choice: Once Teased For Her Love Of Bugs, 8-Yr Old Co-Authors Scientific Paper

Camila Domonoske and Merrit Kennedy — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 19:00:52 +0000

Editor’s Choice: A warm & fuzzy story about creepy crawlies. Though slightly tangential to citizen science, this story illustrates a key ingredient to successful science outreach: scientists seeing a little bit of themselves in their audience. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Morgan Jackson and Sophia Spencer interviewed on NPR, via the...

Editor’s Choice: Benefits and challenges of incorporating citizen science into university education

Tue, 07 Nov 2017 19:00:51 +0000

Editor’s Choice: Getting meta with the data. This study examines learning as well as pre- and post- attitudes of college biology students who participate in, what I’d term “deep” inquiry-based learning. The college students were not only assigned to analyze a species’ potential response to climate change using citizen science phenology data, but also to...

Editor’s Choice: Between Vision and Reality: A Study of Scientists’ Views on Citizen Science

Yaela N. Golumbic, Daniela Orr, Ayelet Baram-Tsabari, Barak Fishbain — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 19:00:27 +0000

Editor’s Choice: This article shows how much work remains to be done to convince our scientific colleagues that, appropriately applied, citizen science is a unique tool that can produce excellent science. — LFF — Abstract: Increased interest in public engagement with science worldwide has resulted in the growth of funding opportunities for scientists in the...