Citizen science impact pathways for a positive contribution to public participation in science

Abstract

Positioning citizen science within the broader historical public engagement framework demonstrates how it has the potential to effectively tackle research and innovation issues. Citizen science approaches have their own challenges, which need to be considered in order to achieve this aim and contribute to wider and deeper public engagement. However, programme evaluations, which discuss lessons learned in engaging the public and other stakeholders with science are rare. To address this gap, we present the H2020-funded DITOs project and discuss the use of logic models in citizen science. We share the project’s assumptions, design considerations for deeper engagement and its impact pathways demonstrating how logic models can be utilised in citizen science to monitor programme effectiveness and for their successful implementation. We hope that this work will inspire citizen science practitioners to use similar tools and by doing so, share their experiences and potential barriers. This knowledge is essential for improving the way citizen science is currently practiced and its impacts to both science and society.

How IoT-Driven Citizen Science Coupled with Data Satisficing Can Promote Deep Citizen Science

“…This can be facilitated through various means as follows. A deeper user engagement in CS can be modelled and fostered by considering the escalator framework for public engagement from [31]. Although there is a link between deeper, more frequent participation in CS at the top end of the escalator and science awareness, participants could still act more as (frequent) spectators rather than actively increasing their science awareness and knowledge.…”

“…This pilot project had a limited budget of £14k and a time-span of six months. Although we accept that user engagement and user experience are important [31], it was not the focus of our project, given that we only had access to limited resources to support this pilot project. We recruited 21 participants, gender-balanced, who were students at Pakistan universities.…”

“…We recruited 21 participants, gender-balanced, who were students at Pakistan universities. In terms of the DITO (Doing It Together Science) project's escalator framework for public engagement [31], we position our participants at Level 6, as this requires regular data collection and analysis by participants.…”

Exploring scientists’ perceptions of citizen science for public engagement with science

“…In addition to contributing to the production of scientific knowledge, Citizen Science (CS) is viewed as a method for increasing public engagement with science [Bonney, Phillips, Ballard & Enck, 2016]. Many CS projects either explicitly or indirectly nominate goals for public engagement in their practice [Steven et al, 2019] and public engagement underpins CS policy in many locations [Hecker, Wicke, Haklay & Bonn, 2019] and best practice guidelines [Robinson, Cawthray, West, Bonn & Ansine, 2018;Skarlatidou & Haklay, 2021]. However, within many CS programs, the engagement is implied, with few studies describing how engagement is managed within CS programs [Phillips, Ballard, Lewenstein & Bonney, 2019].…”

“…The term 'volunteers' has itself been critiqued as inherently implying that their main purpose is free labour and creating a power imbalance with scientists [Eitzel et al, 2017], but we use it here to distinguish participants in citizen science projects from the participants in our study. Skarlatidou and Haklay [2021] describe levels of engagement within CS projects, suggesting that the greater involvement volunteers have in setting project objectives and project design, the greater the engagement. While several typologies of CS projects have been suggested to map project diversity in terms of scientific, social, and other goals as well as the contribution and participation of volunteers [e.g.…”