Summary – Understanding Motivations for Citizen Science: Citizen science plays an important role in delivering environmental data at local and national scales, and can form the basis of scientific research, as well as evidence for policy and management. Citizen science is also an important way of connecting people with nature, and has been used to…
Citizen science is hardly a new concept; yet, it’s still new to many. The Maker revolution has hit certain demographics and certain demographics would call themselves citizen scientists. But more can participate. There are those volunteers that help collect data for more major organizations (bird watching is a huge spot for this but also other…
We are pleased to welcome into the world the new journal “Citizen Science: Theory and Practice” – one hope for this Citizen Science Today aggregator site is to bring forward grey literature from e.g. blog posts and promote it as an important part of the emerging conversation on citizen science that CSTP will only enhance. — LFF — The…
Abstract: Online Citizen Science platforms are good examples of socio-technical systems where technology-enabled interactions occur between scientists and the general public (volunteers). Citizen Science platforms usually host multiple Citizen Science projects, and allow volunteers to choose the ones to participate in. Recent work in the area has demonstrated a positive feedback loop between participation and…
Though it’s the world’s top infectious killer, tuberculosis is surprisingly tricky to diagnose. Scientists think that video gamers can help them create a better diagnostic test. An online puzzle released Monday will see whether the researchers are right. Players of a Web-based game called EteRNA will try to design a sensor molecule that could potentially…
Twice a day, every day, Kera Mathes hops aboard a ship that sets off from Long Beach Harbor in California. As education specialist at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, she helps visitors aboard the ship identify the animals they see. Mathes also supervises the aquarium’s interns (college students and recent graduates), as they…
We could have filled this month’s edition of Citizen Science Today with articles from this special edition of JCOM. Instead, follow the link below to read widely and deeply about the field. – CJL – JCOM is an open access journal on science communication. Since the world of communication and the scientific community are now…
Abstract: The contribution of non-experts to environmental management has been significant and continues to flourish through their participation in citizen science. Despite its growth as an interdisciplinary field of enquiry, there are many gaps in our understanding of the role that citizen science may play in the future of environmental management. In Ontario, Canada, due…
Abstract: We investigate the development of scientific content knowledge of volunteers participating in online citizen science projects in the Zooniverse (http://www.zooniverse.org). We use econometric methods to test how measures of project participation relate to success in a science quiz, controlling for factors known to correlate with scientific knowledge. Citizen scientists believe they are learning about…
Earth could contain nearly 1 trillion species, with only one-thousandth of 1 percent now identified, according to the results of a new study. The estimate, based on universal scaling laws applied to large datasets, appears today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The report’s authors are Jay Lennon and Kenneth Locey…