Ethical boundary work in citizen science

Kasperowski, Dick; Hagen, Niclas; Rohden, Frauke

doi:10.5324/njsts.v10i1.4318

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…An additional ethical challenge is balancing the need for effective and consistent communication with communities with traditional academic goals and stressors, such as limited funding and time . Many academics are incentivized to prioritize publications and grant awards, which do not always align with citizens’ most pressing needs .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Citizen Science Approach to Evaluating Consumer Water Safety Concerns (2011–2022)

Wait,

Roy,

Katner

et al. 2024

ACS EST Water

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Citizen science is utilized by the water industry to collect samples under the provisions of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Lead and Copper Rule. Citizen science was also used in Washington, DC; Flint, MI; St. Joseph, LA; and elsewhere to contradict official messaging regarding water safety, leading to increased media coverage, declared water emergencies, and financial relief. Herein, we share our team's process for engaging citizens, including a retrospective analysis of outcomes and lessons learned for the small percentage of cases in which citizen concerns were confirmed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Citizen Science Approach to Evaluating Consumer Water Safety Concerns (2011–2022)

Wait,

Roy,

Katner

et al. 2024

ACS EST Water

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show abstract

“…Ethics work resonates with the citizen science literature, although this is a developing field. First, it relates to the concept of ethical boundary work, Kasperowski et al [ 45 ] point out that ethical boundary work in citizen science is necessary. The authors refer to the boundaries between academics and non-academics, noting that researchers need to work at the boundaries to legitimate citizen science within academia (ibid.).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the field of citizen science, there is a group of scholars who work more in line with the consultation model wherein citizens join in to gather data rather than sharing power. Still, community- and activist-based citizen science initiatives focus more on epistemic justice and representation [ 45 ]. The insights in this study are relevant for all but may resonate more easily with the full partnership model citizen science academics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethics framework for citizen science and public and patient participation in research

Groot

Abma

2022

BMC Med Ethics

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Background Citizen science and models for public participation in health research share normative ideals of participation, inclusion, and public and patient engagement. Academic researchers collaborate in research with members of the public involved in an issue, maximizing all involved assets, competencies, and knowledge. In citizen science new ethical issues arise, such as who decides, who participates, who is excluded, what it means to share power equally, or whose knowledge counts. This article aims to present an ethics framework that offers a lens of understanding and heuristic guidelines to deal with ethical issues in citizen science. Methods We conducted seven case studies between 2015 and 2021 to attune and validate the ethics framework for the context of citizen science. The cases related to studies with older adults, people with a psychiatric vulnerability, people dependent on community care, people who are unemployed or living in poverty or both, and young adults with respiratory disease. Results Ethics in citizen science reaches beyond the ethical issues in traditional biomedical and health research. It entails more than following procedures about informed consent and privacy and submitting a proposal to a Medical Research Ethics Committee. Ethics in citizen science relates to everyday ethical issues during the study, including relational and moral complexities concerning collaboration, sharing power, and democratic decision-making. Dealing with these issues requires ethics work of researchers. This entails seeing ethically salient issues and reflecting on everyday ethical issues. Ethics work consists of seven features: framing work, role work, emotion work, identity work, reason work, relationship work, and performance work. All are relevant for researchers in citizen science. Conclusions Ethical issues in citizen science often relate to power differentials, partnership, and collaboration between academics and non-academics. The ethics framework prepares researchers for the work needed in citizen science to act responsibly and offers a heuristic guide to reflect on ethics. Reflection on ethics is a pathway towards ethical citizen science, especially if researchers collaboratively reflect in partnership with non-academics who are subject to the moral issue.

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“…But citizen scientists have a different role in the research process than participants in traditional biomedical research, prompting some scholars to examine whether conventional ethical frameworks are appropriate and sufficient for biomedical citizen science (Kasperowski, Hagen, and Rohden 2021;Rasmussen 2021;Vayena and Tasioulas 2013). Specifically, citizen scientists make research contributions other than or in addition to serving as a source of specimens and data for analysis by others and, as demonstrated by PersonalPRS, include potential contributions at many stages of the research process (ECSA 2015;Wiggins and Wilbanks 2019).…”

Section: The Traditional Research Ethics Framework and Application To...mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Ethics Framework for Evaluating Ownership Practices in Biomedical Citizen Science

Guerrini

McGuire

2022

Citizen Science: Theory and Practice

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The collaborative nature of citizen science raises important questions about managing ownership of its research outputs. Potential citizen science research outputs include data sets, findings, publications, and discoveries of new ideas, methods, products, and technologies. Unlike citizen science projects conducted in other disciplines, biomedical citizen science projects often include features, such as contribution of personal health data, that might heighten citizen scientists' expectations that they will be able to access, control, or share in the benefits of project outputs. Here, we refer to moral claims of access, control, and benefit as ownership claims, and a project's management of ownership claims as its ownership practices. Ethical management of ownership is widely recognized as an important consideration for citizen science projects, and practitioners and scholars have described helpful recommendations for preempting issues and engaging stakeholders on practices. Building on this literature, we propose a framework to help biomedical citizen science projects systematically evaluate the ethical soundness of their ownership practices based on four considerations: reciprocal treatment, relative treatment, risk-benefit assessment, and reasonable expectations.

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Ethical boundary work in citizen science

Cited by 6 publications

References 17 publications

A Citizen Science Approach to Evaluating Consumer Water Safety Concerns (2011–2022)

A Citizen Science Approach to Evaluating Consumer Water Safety Concerns (2011–2022)

Ethics framework for citizen science and public and patient participation in research

An Ethics Framework for Evaluating Ownership Practices in Biomedical Citizen Science

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