What happens when instead of asking the crowd for help, the question of what is explored is handed over to the participants?
The potential of bottom-up citizen science has increased dramatically in the past decade. To understand this, we can look at the societal and technological changes that led to this proliferation, and then explore the challenges, risks and opportunities that this approach presents.
This seminar will also be live webcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqY8Jv5r4bs
Physiochemical properties of nanomaterials and its nanotoxicity.pptx
Oxford Martin School talk - May 2014
1. Beyond the screen: the power and
beauty of ‘up-science’ projects
Muki Haklay @mhaklay
Extreme Citizen Science group @ucl_excites
2. Extreme Citizen Science
Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) is a situated,
bottom-up practice that takes into account
local needs, practices and culture and works
with broad networks of people to design and
build new devices and knowledge creation
processes that can transform the world.
3. ExCiteS Research Group
ExCiteS is an interdisciplinary
research group at UCL that
develops …
• Theories
• Tools
• Methodologies
… to enable any community
anywhere to engage and
participate in Citizen Science.
4. Outline
• Citizen science in the 20th Century
• Enabling trends: societal, technology
• Citizen science today:
biodiversity/conservation, volunteer
computing, volunteer thinking
• Typologies and levels of participation
• Up-Science: examples
• Challenges & open issues
6. The era of professional science
• Involvement continued: archaeology, astronomy,
ornithology, biodoversity, conservation,
meteorology …
• No recognition, views of volunteers as
‘untrustworthy’ contributors
Shoemaker-Levy 9 on 17 May 1994
7. Trends
• Technology and societal enablers
• Within the last 10 years:
– Web availability, with broadband access to resources
and information
– Collaborative, socially-based knowledge creation
systems (Web 2.0)
– Location-enabled mobile devices
– DIY electronics, ‘makers’ & ‘hackers’
• Combined with:
– Increased levels of education
– Increased understanding of abstract concepts and
science communication
Haklay, M., Singleton, A., and Parker, C., 2008, Web mapping 2.0: the Neogeography of the Geoweb,
Geography Compass
16. Increased level of education
95 99 107 116 124 132 138 146 154 159 165
1
10
100
1000
10000
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
World population and students in tertiary education,
World Bank data
Tertiary Ed World Population
18. A new era of citizen science
• As a result of the technical and societal
changes, citizen science re-emerged
• New forms, fostered by ‘citizen cyberscience’
(citizen science facilitated by the Internet)
• Types: biodiversity/conservation observations
recording; volunteer computing; volunteer
thinking; Do It Yourself (DIY) science;
community/civic science
Haklay, M., 2013, Citizen Science and Volunteered Geographic Information –
overview and typology of participation in Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge
29. Typology of Citizen Science
• Contributory projects, designed by scientists and
members of the public primarily contribute data
• Collaborative projects, designed by scientists and
members of the public contribute data but may
help in project design, analysis, or dissemination
• Co-created projects, designed by scientists and
members of the public working together and at
least some of the public participants are actively
involved in most/all steps of the scientific process
Bonney, Ballard, Jordan, McCallie, Phillips, Shirk, & Wilderman. 2009. Public
Participation in Scientific Research
30. Participation in citizen science
• Collaborative science – problem
definition, data collection and analysis
Level 4 ‘Extreme/
Up-Science’
• Participation in problem definition
and data collection
Level 3 ‘Participatory
science’
• Citizens as basic interpreters
Level 2 ‘Distributed
intelligence’
• Citizens as sensors
Level 1
‘Crowdsourcing’
Haklay. 2013. Citizen Science and volunteered geographic information: Overview
and typology of participation, Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge
31. Cooper, Dickinson, Phillips & Bonney, 2007, Citizen Science as tool for conservation in residential ecosystems. Ecology and Society
12(2)
Question
Study Design
Data Collection
Data Analysis and
Interpretation
Understanding
results
Management Action
Geographic scope
of project
Nature of people
taking action
Research priority
Education priority
Traditional
Science
Scientific
Consulting*
Citizen
Science*
Collaborative
Citizen
Science
Participatory
Action
Research
Variable Narrow NarrowBroad Broad
Managers
Community
Groups Managers Individuals
Community
Groups
Highest Medium High High Medium
Low Medium High High High
*often called Science Shops
Community Science
Co-created
Citizen
Science
Narrow
High
High
All
√
√√√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√ √
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√ √
√
√
√Public Scientists
√
√
√
60. ExCiteS Methods
60
1) A detailed process of Free,
Prior and Informed Consent
(FPIC)
2) Iterative, participatory
software development to
ensure the ExCiteS tools are
relevant and usable
3) Building Community
Protocols for engagement
with:
a) The project itself
b) Other stakeholders in the
data to be collected
69. Data Quality Assurance
• Crowdsourcing - the number of people that
edited the information
• Social - gatekeepers and moderators
• Geographic - broader geographic knowledge
• Domain knowledge - the knowledge domain
of the information
• Instrumental observation – technology based
calibration
• Process oriented – following a procedure
73. Ethical & professional practices
[Scientist] stood up and said that the data was not statistically significant—and it could be
harmful if patients built their own regimens based on the results.
… many of the attendees considered [the] experiment to be "soft" science. (WSJ 2011)
74. Activist Citizen Science
• NIMBY – Not in My Back Yard
• NIABY – Not in Anyone’s Back Yard
• BANANA – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere
Near Anyone
Vs
• Environmental Justice
• Environmental Inequalities
In addition, the role of science in the discussion
75. Summary
• Technological and societal changes enabled a
new era in citizen science
• In particular, DIY electronics, knowledge sharing
systems and smartphone open up the possibility
of ‘up-science’
• Despite the challenges, there is a potential of
making citizen science available across the globe
– to any community, regardless of literacy
77. Credits
Support for the research kindly provided by:
UCL Graduate School Research Fund
ESRC ‘Conserving Biodiversity That Matters: The Value of Brownfield Sites’ project
RGS/IBG Small Research Grant
UrbanBuzz: Building Sustainable Communities (HEFCE)
London Sustainability Exchange (LSx)
London 21 Sustainability Network
EPSRC Challenging Engineering Award ‘Extreme Citizen Science’
EPSRC Adaptable Suburbs project
EU FP7 EveryAware project
Google Research Awards
Amazon Web Services Education Grants
Our special thanks to the participants and the communities that work with us
And to our partners: Royal Geographical Society, ESRI, Helveta and U-Blox