TY - JOUR T1 - The future of citizen science: emerging technologies and shifting paradigms JF - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment Y1 - 2012 A1 - Newman, Greg A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Crall, Alycia A1 - Graham, Eric A1 - Newman, Sarah A1 - Kevin Crowston AB -

Citizen science creates a nexus between science and education that, when coupled with emerging technologies, expands the frontiers of ecological research and public engagement. Using representative technologies and other examples, we examine the future of citizen science in terms of its research processes, program and participant cultures, and scientific communities. Future citizen-science projects will likely be influenced by sociocultural issues related to new technologies and will continue to face practical programmatic challenges. We foresee networked, open science and the use of online computer/video gaming as important tools to engage non-traditional audiences, and offer recommendations to help prepare project managers for impending challenges. A more formalized citizen-science enterprise, complete with networked organizations, associations, journals, and cyberinfrastructure, will advance scientific research, including ecology, and further public education.

VL - 10 UR - http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/110294 IS - 6 JO - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment ER - TY - CONF T1 - Mechanisms for Data Quality and Validation in Citizen Science T2 - "Computing for Citizen Science" workshop at the IEEE eScience Conference Y1 - 2011 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Newman, Greg A1 - Stevenson, Robert D. A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - Citizen Science KW - data quality KW - data validation AB - Data quality is a primary concern for researchers employing public participation in scientific research, or “citizen science,” to accomplish data collection and analysis tasks. This mode of scientific collaboration relies on contributions from a large, often unknown population of volunteers with widely variable expertise. In this paper, we review the commonly employed mechanisms for ensuring data quality. We also discuss results of a survey of citizen science projects that reports on the use of some of these mechanisms, noting that it is most common for projects to employ multiple mechanisms to ensure data quality and appropriate levels of validation. JF - "Computing for Citizen Science" workshop at the IEEE eScience Conference CY - Stockholm, Sweden UR - http://itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch/workshops/compcitsci2011/index.html ER -