Editor's Notes

1. We define public participation in scientific research (PPSR) as public involvement in one or more steps of the scientific research process: asking questions, collecting data, interpreting results.
2. What is citizen science and PPSR? Because I’m here from the Lab of Ornithology, I’ll give you this example to start. Watch the map [note: this animation of advancing and receding bird migration will not be visible in SlideShare]. This science, the science of landscape-scale migration patterns, could not happen without thousands of eBird contributors across the continent. The power of citizen science is in observations.
3. But the power of citizen science is also in experiences. This is Sherman’s Creek, outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where residents in the 1990’s began collecting baseline water quality data in the watershed. They knew the resource intimately, now they also know it scientifically.
4. Looking across the field of PPSR, we set out to explore what kinds of outcomes these projects could achieve. There were scientific outcomes, such as peer reviewed publications. There were educational outcomes, including increased awareness about environmental issues. And there were outcomes for social-ecological systems, including action to improve surroundings. We propose that these outcomes are related to the degree, as well as to the quality, of participation opportunities.
5. Although the degree of participation could be described in any number of ways, we look at the depth of public involvement in the research process.
6. We define the quality of participation as the way in which the interests of different partners are balanced in the design of a project.
7. Although there may be many different partners involved, we specifically focus on the balance of scientific and public interests. This framework describes proposed relationships between how those interests are balanced at the outset, and the way that balance can affect project outcomes. Essentially, the quality of participation at the outset will likely determine the degree of public participation throughout the research process.
8. It is more challenging to test how these models relate to outcomes, as data on outcomes are limited. These are some summarized results from Danielsen et al.
9. By compiling outcomes data from Danielsen, the CAISE report, and a few papers offering case studies, we see a general trend in relationships between project approaches and outcomes.
10. To better determinerelationships between the degree and quality of participation and the outcomes projects achieve, we need more and better outcomes data. From the information already available, we believe that these models and framework offer opportunities to address unachieved outcomes, if project designers are reflexive and intentional about design.
11. We believe that articulating commonalities between project types can help explore meaningful differences. It is important to continue to build conversations across traditions, to better understand different approaches and to share insights about how approaches relate to outcomes. We suspect that integrated approaches and cross-tradition investigations can grow the larger field in new and compelling directions.
12. For more information, and updates about new developments in citizen science and other forms of public participation in scientific research, see www.citizenscience.org or contact cscentralat cornelldot edu