Crowdsourcing the Human Gut. Is crowdsourcing also 'citizen science'?

Abstract

The participation of non-professionally trained people in so-called citizen science (CS) projects is a much discussed topic at the moment. Frequently, however, the contribution of citizens is limited to only a few narrow tasks. Focusing on an initiative dedicated to the study of the human microbiome, this paper describes such a case where citizen participation is limited to the provision of funding, samples, and personal data. Researchers opted for a crowdsourced approaches because other forms of funding and recruitment did not seem feasible. We argue that despite the narrow understanding of participation in the context of some CS projects, they can address some of the democratic concerns related to scientific knowledge creation. For example, CS and crowdsourcing can help to foster dialogue between researchers and publics, and increase the influence of citizens on research agenda setting.

Motivations of participants in the citizen science of microbiomics: data from the British Gut Project

“…4 5 The American Gut Project (AGP) and its British offshoot, the British Gut Project (BGP), have used a 'citizen science' approach to establishing a database on human microbiomics. 6 Citizen science is a broad label under which a wide range of practices are subsumed, ranging from volunteers contributing money or collecting data to volunteers running an entire project without the involvement of professional scientists. In the particular instance of the AGP and BGP, the projects employ a "thin" model of citizen science where the project's goals and methods are determined by professional scientists.…”

Collective organization of discourse expertise using information technology – CODE IT!

“…In our own discipline, that of political science, for example, the divide between manual and computational methods is one of many, and with regard to including non-professional expertise, Prainsack [17] reports substantial resistance in political science and development studies. Disregarding this diversity, human computation generally lacks a discussion of the political -rather than merely technical -value of participation, while recent commentaries on citizen science assesses citizen science precisely through this lens [7].…”

Every participant is a PI. Citizen science and participatory governance in population studies

“…In biomedicine so far, most citizen science projects are run by professional scientists and researchers, with lay participation in the form of voluntary data and sample donations, or financial contributions to data-rich projects (crowdfunding) (16). In these projects, decisionmaking and research agenda setting largely rest with the researchers running the projects (they could be described as 'top-down' citizen science projects).…”

“…However, interest is growing in initiatives where lay volunteers and patients take a more active role and function as part- Some scholars have criticised citizen science, citing worries that due to lack of formal training, results might be of lower quality, or that such initiatives are vulnerable to commercial influences and interests, leading to biased results (17,18). Certainly, not all participatory practices are created equal (11), but if done well, they could indeed provide a tool to support increased and meaningful participation of members of the public with science and research (16). User-friendly online tools and platforms in particular have expanded the ways in which individuals can control their data, paving the way for participant-centred initiatives in biomedicine and easing the dialogue between participants and researchers (19).…”

“…An association has the key advantage that it would outlast single projects, thus being able to co-govern long-term longitudinal studies. Moreover such an association could tap into additional sources of funding -for instance crowdfunding, which is often combined with or part of citizen science initiatives (36,16).…”