ECSA2016: Open Citizen Science – Day 2 (Morning)
After the opening day (see morning and afternoon posts) and the reception under the dinosaur at the museum, the second day started with a series of keynotes:
Introduction and review of day 1 Marisa Ponti University of Gothenburg, Sweden: we’re opening a second day of the conference, and we want to reconnect to the first day. Paarticularly happy to hear the connection at the EC level about the link of citizen science and open science. Indicators for success, and digital and other aspects of inequality were address. Today we have 3 keynotes, and that is followed by two four parallel sessions.
Keynotes facilitated by: Susanne Hecker UFZ | iDiv, Germany – we have several celebrations – including the birthday of the conference chair.
Citizen science – innovation & inspiration for science (Rick Bonney Cornell Lab of Ornithology, USA) , who’s been working in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for 42 years, and he started many citizen science projects in the lab. Few days, eBird received 18,000 checklists a day – eBird can provide specific location and see what was happening and you can report opportunistic or systematic effort. You can report what you’ve seen – the list is automatically checked, and the filters that decide which list you can see is operated by many volunteer editors. This helps in managing the quality of the data – since 2002 they had 300K users, 250mil observations – 98.5% world’s species. Because the checklist is smart, it is telling us if we recorded everything that you’ve seen or not, this provided the data for statisticians that can do the STEM model for distribution of specieis. They can see the routes of travel and discover routes of migration – e.g. over the ocean – which was not known to ornithologists before the data was avaialble. Lots of papers are coming out, including about climate change impact. There is also analysis to support the location of creating wetlands to support migratory birds. The data is open and allow people to use it for many purposes. There are also survey of people who use the data – from low and policy, habitat protection and site and habitat management. There is evidence for effective conservation. The eBird data is used for the state of bird population and ways of exploring the data – it is being used for education with a range of lesson plans. There is also an effort to increase cultural diversity of participants. CLO was one of the first organisations that include citizen science in its mission. This links to the history of the lab that was always working with volunteers observers. Rick’s dad encourage him to be interested in birds and the environment, and he done analysis of Christmas Bird Count – he done diary of birds, and he managed to discover things that other people didn’t know. He joined the lab in 1972, and that led to analysis of Christmas Bird Count. After graduation he worked as Volkswagen mechanic and other jobs, and started working on the Living Bird magazine and found many things about the nest watch study. They started noticing impacts on citizen science. They developed different programme – e.g. feederWaatch that allow people to learn about the birds in addition to the data collection. So they have developed programmes – from Nest Record Card in 1965 to eBird in 2002. Citizen Science allow to track infectious disease, understand forest fregmantation impact that led to guides to forest manager. There were many otehr people doing work with citizen science – the number of peer review publications are appearing. Theobald et al. 2015 show that citizen science is contributing to many areas – many people, high financial value, and many peer review paper. The important aspects are: design and evaluate effectively, ‘own’ citizen science, diversity and inclusion and collaborate. there are different guides for citizen science and toolkits. There are different terms that re being used – civic science, volunteer monitoring, traditional knowledge – but the concept is being recognised and it get traction – we need to own and embrace the term. Without a common term, it is impossible to quantify the impacts. The third point is diversity & inclusion – many community know things that we don’t know. The is an importance in collaboration – Finn Danielsen 2013 demonstrate that many indicators for international treaties can be done through citizen science. Rick hope to develop an eFish project next.
10 Principles of Citizen Science Lucy Robinson The Natural History Museum London, UK. The term was not used in the UK in the past but gain acceptance – she described the Natural History Museum, and through the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) programme they secured commitments from managment and it is central to their work. They have different project through different means – about 10 projects.The ECSA working group on best practice have developed the 10 principles which was an internal deliberative process. We were able to create them, and share them. Why are they needed? the term citizen science became a buzz word, and it create many opprotunities, but also require challenges to agree on common concept and not use ‘we should’ – we don’t want standards – we want it as a flexible concept which can be applied in diverse situations and disciplines – but we do want to have good practice. The principles are for inspiration, support, principle of good practice. She then gone through the 10 principles: The first principle is actively involve citizens, and there are many photoes of people involve locally and the principle usually met. Second, we want to have real science, as Rick demonstrated – many peer reviews publication, but this is not the only output, from identifying pollution and acting on it, or other similar things. Third, thinking about who benefits – need to be mutual beneficial. Many benefits are varies and different between actors – we need to evaluate these impacts – but this is squeezed many times. The #WhyICitSci demonstrated the benefits for practitioners. Four, there are smaller scale projects that allow people to engage in multiple stages of the process if they wish to. Fifth, we need to ensure feedback – it’s motivate people, feedbak can be newsletter, maps, emails but personalised feedback is important – can we be more creative. For example in LA they carry out meetups. Sixth, it is about understanding it as a research approach, and the data quality issue of citizen science is addressed – are we do in it enough to address the concerns. Need to remember that it is a research method. We don’t need perfect – high-quality data. We also need it fit for purpose. Seventh, need to make data and metadata open – in practice, this doesn’t happen for many reasons. Eights – we need to acknowledge the citizen science in project results and publications – in one case a project listed 37,000 co-authors (only 10 professional). Ninth, evaluating citizen science for their outcomes – this is something that can be squeezed out – evaluation require careful thinking what was the purpose of the project. Need to think in advanced about what success mean. Finally, considering ethical and legal considerations of the activity. The principles are translated to many languages – in 17 languages and 3 more in preparation. There are now news guides for citizen science. We are now an international committee – we have 300 people in the room who are presenting thousands of citizen science projects. What should be the eleventh principle?
My talk, Participatory Citizen Science, is available in a separate blog
Of the four parallel sessions that were on offer, I followed:
Worldwide citizen science initiatives on light pollution
Chairs: Franz Hölker & Sibylle Schroer, IGB Berlin, Germany
Introduction
How reliable is data produced by citizen scientists? Christopher Kyba GFZ Potsdam, Germany
Cities at Night: ISS pictures to trace the environmental impact the light pollution
Alejandro Sanches Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
From an interdisciplinary science community to citizen science Sibylle Schroer IGB Berlin, Germany
Crime Scene German Inland Waters: On the Track of CO2 Katja Felsmann IGB Berlin, Germany
World Café
