Full title: Analyzing the Role of Citizen Science in Modern Research.
“A book edited by Luigi Ceccaroni (1000001 Labs) and Jaume Piera (ICM-CSIC)
Structure
1. Ontology (definition of concepts and formal relations between citizen science and other sciences, including taxonomy of different dimensions of citizens’ observatories): 1000001 Labs, Commons Lab | Wilson Center, Atlas of Living Australia, ICM-CSIC.
2. Social context (including citizen-science adoption, social implications of ICT-facilitated citizen science for governance and decision making -theoretical contribution plus empirical evidence-, social networking, engagement, community management, differences among international, national and local levels, citizens as the main actors of citizen-science projects and their willingness to engage in citizen science -theoretical and empirical contribution, based on data sharing of personal data-): Universidade de Lisboa.
3. More than networking: how citizen-science associations contribute to the professionalization of citizen science globally: Museum für Naturkunde Berlin | ECSA, CSA, ACSA.
4. Suitability of citizen science (descriptors/attributes and scenarios suitable to be studied with citizen science): Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
5. Interoperability (including standards context and data management) [contribution still possible].
6. Information collection (including citizen-science platforms, internet of things, paradigmatic changes in the conceptualization of participation related to citizen science and data collection, guidelines for the sustained engagement of citizens in information collection -based on empirical evidence from citizen science projects-) [contribution still possible].
7. Quality control (in-situ and cloud-based): [contribution still possible].
8. Intellectual property rights [contribution still possible].
9. Citizens observatories as future learning environments: UOC, CSIC.
10. Geographical information systems (their use in citizen science) [contribution still possible].
11. Information to knowledge (including data interpretation and integration): [contribution still possible].
12. Knowledge integration with context (integration of newly-generated knowledge with existing information context; citizens science as a complement to Earth observation and environmental monitoring systems): [contribution still possible].
13. Artificial intelligence (including recommendation, recognition and reputation in citizen science) [contribution still possible].
14. Adaptive knowledge-delivery.
14.1. Introduction to adaptive knowledge-delivery [contribution still possible].
14.2. Knowledge delivery to decision makers (including sustained engagement of decision makers in using delivered knowledge) [contribution still possible].
14.3. Knowledge delivery to citizens (including sustained engagement of citizens in using delivered knowledge): Trinity College Dublin [contribution still possible].
14.4. Knowledge delivery to researchers (including sustained engagement of researchers in using delivered knowledge) [contribution still possible].
15. Roles of citizen science.
15.1. The role of citizen science in sustainable development (including case studies of citizen-science implementation, capacity development, impact evaluation methodologies and the contribution of citizen science in all of this): Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU).
15.2. The role of citizen science in education for sustainable development: a critical exploration: Cardiff University.
16. Barriers and blind spots (including security, privacy, misuse in citizen science) [contribution still possible].
17. Can citizen science seriously contribute to policy development?: the decision maker’s view (including readiness of authorities in taking up citizen-science solutions, and fears and expectations of policy makers, changing authorities’ perceptions over time -empirical evidence-): Welsh Government.
18. Market exploitation (market exploitation of citizen-science solutions) [contribution still possible].
Background
Citizen science draws from different fields, such as environmental sciences, biological sciences, Earth observation, crowdsourcing, do-it-yourself approaches, participatory science, environmental mapping, intelligent data-analysis, social sciences and artificial intelligence. Initiatives and projects based on citizen-science are being developed at local, national and global levels, and are reaching out to ordinary citizens and decision makers for them to engage and take part in science together with researchers. Prominent examples of citizen-science projects are the European citizens’ observatories [http://www.citizen-obs.eu/]. Citizens are now valued as a key component in the global transition towards a sustainable development, and citizen science aims to: enhance capacities with regard to citizens’ initiatives; collect and analyze data from citizens; identify good practices and challenges, such as data accessibility and interoperability; and deliver information to decision makers and, importantly, back to the citizens.
Citizen science can support decision makers by intensifying the dialogue at different scales: from improving early-warning systems, to assisting grassroots activities to protect an endangered species, to supporting environment-related policy targets. It provides the methodology and tools to listen to and engage with citizens on issues such as environmental sustainability, and thus acquire essential local knowledge to determine if national and international environmental programs are working.
Objective
This book looks to:
- discuss how to formalize the new discipline of citizen science in its early stages;
- allow everyone in the research community to find out what everyone else has been doing in citizen science;
- allow greater cooperation among citizen-science initiatives.
It will also address topics which are not often explored; specifically it will:
- address how citizen science relates with other sciences;
- provide an ontological classification of all the concepts of this domain;
- address data harmonization, describing how citizen science can be integrated with existing standards, such as OGC’s Sensor Observation Service.
Based on the analysis of existing experiences, it will define best practices in the methodologies to set up and implement citizen-science initiatives, especially at the international level. Citizen science will be formally defined through the description of its relation with the following areas of knowledge: Earth observation, environment quality, education, socioeconomic benefits, information acquisition, information processing and interpretation, information delivery, data interoperability, standards, novel low-cost technology, collaboration and teamwork, security, and privacy.
This book aims to be an essential reference source about how novel, low-cost technology might be used in citizen science, providing landmarks and guidelines to decision makers and researchers exploring this new territory in knowledge and working at the cutting edge of this field. It will provide inspiration to researchers who designed a tool with one specific use in mind, to generalize it to other uses and to realize the social innovation potential when this tool is used in citizen observatories.
This text will also provide the resources necessary to avoid new citizen-science tools to be abused. For instance, current citizen-science systems are designed to allow the maximum flow of messages and data with a minimum of filtering or barriers, and the possibility of hijacking the medium for spam is generally not taken into account.
This book will help to relax the constraints of governing metaphors in science. Society is failing to see the citizen-science revolution coming, in part because science’s governing metaphor is drawn from the idea of the scientific document in highly specialized journals: expensive materials and methods, not people. Consequently, most science is not considering low-cost instruments, alternative ways of publishing and social networks.
Even if citizen science is not a plug-and-play solution to sustainability, this book will help to perceive important developments and possibilities, such as that individuals are taking an active role in the transition to a sustainable society, and in helping to protect and improve health and the environment; and will do this not assuming that traditional trends will continue to follow their trajectory. Sciences, in the last century, have been characterized by their increasing complexity: an obvious and indisputable trend. Despite this fact, this book will document the rise of citizen science, whose simplicity, openness and ability to empower and engage citizens make it perfect for a society which is already been changed by Facebook and the iPhone.
Finally, this book will consider the risks of innovating our way out of strong dependency on traditional science only to be plunged into chaos when the world suddenly finds itself dealing with different approaches to science at the same time. Because every new solution often hides its own set of problems, one objective of this book is to define paths to conciliate and mutually strengthen traditional and citizen science.
Audience
Academicians, researchers, policy makers, technology developers and government officials aiming at developing a citizen- or participatory-science initiative will find this text useful in furthering their exposure to pertinent topics and research efforts in this field.
Submission Procedure
Researchers are invited to contact the editors as soon as possible and no later than March 26th about their intention to submit a chapter explaining the content and concerns of this proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by mid April, 2016. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this book.
Publisher
This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference), “Medical Information Science Reference,” “Business Science Reference,” and “Engineering Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This book is anticipated to be released in 2016.
Important Dates
- April 10th, 2016: Final Chapter-Submission
- April 30th, 2016: Book release
The final chapter manuscripts, in US English, will have to contain 9.000–10.000 words (approximately 26 pages) and can include figures, tables and charts.
Finally, if you’re concerned about open access to this book, please read our notes on this matter here: [http://www.1000001labs.org/analyzing-the-role-of-citizen-science-in-modern-research-book-criticism/].
Inquiries and submissions can be sent electronically [Microsoft Office Word Document (.doc or .docx) or OpenDocument (.odt)] to: Dr. Luigi Ceccaroni (e-mail: [email protected])”