Technological Ecosystems in Citizen Science: A Framework to Involve Children and Young People

Abstract

Young people are distinguished as a social group with the capacity to drive new behaviours and understandings in today's society. However, most young people consider that people in charge of decision-making processes are not addressing their concerns. The WYRED project proposes a framework for citizen science based on a technological ecosystem to promote the transfer of perspectives, ideas, and knowledge among young people and decision-makers on issues related to the digital society. The work goal is to analyse the model proposed through a citizen science case study centred in identifying the ideas and opinions of children and young people between 7 and 30 years old, concerning gender stereotypes on the Internet. A total of 69 children and young people from Belgium, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom have interacted for two weeks in a private space guaranteed by the defined ecosystem. The results of the analysis of the interaction between young people and facilitators (with different profiles: educators, researchers and decision-makers) demonstrate that the use of technological ecosystems to sustain the development of citizen science projects allows for the improvement of knowledge transfer processes between children and young people with stakeholders, as well as the analysis of these processes.

Empowering youth in citizen science and citizen social science

“…Empowering youth in CS/CSS is a complex process that has been actively explored within the citizen science community in various contexts. A small selection of these research questions include: youth agency [5,6], relevant stakeholder engagement [7], youth setting the research agenda [8,9], formal learning [10], informal learning [10][11][12][13], limited youth engagement in CSS projects [2, 14], and the quality of youth research contributions [15]. The practical experience and knowledge shared by participants of this workshop builds on this work, but there is limited space within this paper to critically engage with our results or to set them in the broader context.…”

Citizen Science in Information Systems Research

“… New projects in the BISE community Finally, our discipline should consider citizen science as a real opportunity to engage citizens in and attract them to our research. So far, there are very few examples, like WYRED, which was conducted in Belgium to identify gender stereotypes on the internet (García-Holgado et al 2020 ), that are somehow related to our field. However, many societal challenges are related to information systems today and may open opportunities for citizen science projects.…”

Gaming for Social Inclusion and Civic Participation: the INGAME project

“…Young people have the ability and the will to contribute as a group to the sustainability of their environment, as well as the knowledge to participate in decisions related to the digital society [3]. Moreover, promoting the participation of young people in political and social decision-making is essential to make societies more democratic and inclusive [4].…”