This document discusses citizen science projects focused on biodiversity in Europe. It provides background on citizen science, describing it as scientific research conducted in whole or in part by amateur or nonprofessional scientists. It then highlights several examples of biodiversity monitoring projects in Europe, including waarnemingen.be, waarneming.nl, observado.org, artportalen.se, and naturgucker.de. These projects engage citizens to record and report observations of taxa in nature. The document compares the scale of these projects in terms of numbers of observations, users, and other collected data.
Weather Outlook - Dr. Elwynn Taylor, Climatologist, Ag Meteorologist, Iowa State University, from the 2012 World Pork Expo, June 6-8, Des Moines, Iowa, USA.
Vidharba, Maharashtra is becoming a hot bed of farmers suicides, a complete paradigm shift in the way agriculture is done and supported is needed to make change possible
Key Note Paper by Prof. Zahurul Karim Ph D
Fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences & Academy of Sciences for the Developing World
Chairman,CASEED
CARE’S Presentation
August 4 2012
Weather Outlook - Dr. Elwynn Taylor, Climatologist, Ag Meteorologist, Iowa State University, from the 2012 World Pork Expo, June 6-8, Des Moines, Iowa, USA.
Vidharba, Maharashtra is becoming a hot bed of farmers suicides, a complete paradigm shift in the way agriculture is done and supported is needed to make change possible
Key Note Paper by Prof. Zahurul Karim Ph D
Fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences & Academy of Sciences for the Developing World
Chairman,CASEED
CARE’S Presentation
August 4 2012
The Open Access movement gains momentum – should young scientists care?Martin Ballaschk
This presentation acommodated a talk I held at the 14th PhD retreat of the two Berlin life science institutes MDC and FMP. Other participants included Zena Werb (UCSF), Helmut Kettenmann (MDC), Paul Schultze-Motel (Helmholtz OA Office) and Angelika Lex (Elsevier).
The main introductory points have bee adressed by a moderator before, so I don't introduce definitions of green and gold open access. The talk is focused on open access journals (what is commonly perceived as "the" open access) and the PhD's students view on it, but also mentions the possibility of deposition of "unfree" publications in publicly accessable repositories ("green OA") as an alternative.
The goal of the discussion and the presentation was to raise awareness for the journal crisis, the possibility of funding and fee waivers in OA journals, and scientist's vs. publisher's interests.
Eugenio Diaz Bonilla, Executive Director for Argentina and Haiti, Inter-American Development Bank
14th October 2008, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C.
Dr Jeff Borden, Director of the Center for Online Learning,
Vice President of Instruction & Academic Strategy, Pearson eCollege, Denver
Presentation at 'Online and open access learning in HE: MOOCs, new pedagogies and business models' conference (5 February 2013, Senate House, London).
New tools for monitoring biodiversity and environmentsEdward Baker
How do we do science when the computer of 15 years ago now fits in your pocket and costs less than the battery you need to run it? Should biodiversity scientists work with the hacker and maker community? Should we forge links with engineering departments? Should hardware become a standard tool of the biodiversity informatician?
Phasmids as Pests of Agriculture and ForestryEdward Baker
Introductory presentation on stick insects (Insecta: Phasmida) as pests of agriculture and forestry, with examples from the USA, Australia, Fiji and China.
Cite as:
Baker, Edward (2015): Phasmids as Pests of Agriculture and Forestry. figshare.
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1472902
The Open Access movement gains momentum – should young scientists care?Martin Ballaschk
This presentation acommodated a talk I held at the 14th PhD retreat of the two Berlin life science institutes MDC and FMP. Other participants included Zena Werb (UCSF), Helmut Kettenmann (MDC), Paul Schultze-Motel (Helmholtz OA Office) and Angelika Lex (Elsevier).
The main introductory points have bee adressed by a moderator before, so I don't introduce definitions of green and gold open access. The talk is focused on open access journals (what is commonly perceived as "the" open access) and the PhD's students view on it, but also mentions the possibility of deposition of "unfree" publications in publicly accessable repositories ("green OA") as an alternative.
The goal of the discussion and the presentation was to raise awareness for the journal crisis, the possibility of funding and fee waivers in OA journals, and scientist's vs. publisher's interests.
Eugenio Diaz Bonilla, Executive Director for Argentina and Haiti, Inter-American Development Bank
14th October 2008, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C.
Dr Jeff Borden, Director of the Center for Online Learning,
Vice President of Instruction & Academic Strategy, Pearson eCollege, Denver
Presentation at 'Online and open access learning in HE: MOOCs, new pedagogies and business models' conference (5 February 2013, Senate House, London).
New tools for monitoring biodiversity and environmentsEdward Baker
How do we do science when the computer of 15 years ago now fits in your pocket and costs less than the battery you need to run it? Should biodiversity scientists work with the hacker and maker community? Should we forge links with engineering departments? Should hardware become a standard tool of the biodiversity informatician?
Phasmids as Pests of Agriculture and ForestryEdward Baker
Introductory presentation on stick insects (Insecta: Phasmida) as pests of agriculture and forestry, with examples from the USA, Australia, Fiji and China.
Cite as:
Baker, Edward (2015): Phasmids as Pests of Agriculture and Forestry. figshare.
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1472902
At Akvo's Track Day on 6 March 2012, Luuk and Kathelyne gave a workshop about Akvo's RSR.
In this powerpoint presentation, you'll get a tour of Akvo's admin features in the project back-end.
Economic growth has led to lower employment and combined with earnings from abroad and remittances this has added a significant amount of funds to households’ disposable income in all three Baltic countries, SEB’s latest Baltic Household Outlook shows.
Measuring Impact: Towards a data citation metricEdward Baker
How the ViBRANT and eMonocot projects are building tools, including a modified implementation of Bourne and Fink's 'Scholar Factor', the Biodiversity Data Journal, and Scratchpad's user metrics and statistics modules.
2. citizen science
“scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by
amateur or nonprofessional scientists, often by
crowdsourcing” [wikipedia]
● Data gathering vs. data analysis
– observations in nature vs. online recognizing patterns
of whale songs, the sea floor, galaxies...
● Single researcher vs. combined efforts
– amateurs describing new species vs. participation in
crowdsourcing projects
● “Top-down” vs. “bottom up” approaches in projects
● One day events (e.g BioBlitz) vs. ongoing initiatives
3. characteristics
● Major driver: Interest and enthusiasm of the citizen
● No commercial interest
● Cannot be “forced” - varying levels of participation, but
always volunteering!
● Broad range of level of expertise
● Individuals, teams, or networks of volunteers
● Often very localized (e.g. my local insect fauna, butterflies in
my garden)
● Varying levels of professionalism - from uploading photos to
the web to collaborations with professional scientists
4. why involve citizens?
● Professional science: not enough
resources for many projects
● Added value from mass collection /
analysis of data (detection of trends)
● Knowledge of “amateurs” often very high
● Communication between the “ivory tower”
and the “normal world”
5. why involve citizens?
● Professional science: not enough
resources for many projects
● Added value from mass collection /
analysis of data (detection of trends)
● Knowledge of “amateurs” often very high
● Communication between the “ivory tower”
and the “normal world”
8. some examples...
● Biodiversity monitoring projects (recording a taxon at a locality
at a certain time)
● Large projects (→ what is the “recipe for success”?)
● Different aspects:
– associated to official organizations/important NGOs / used for
policy-making vs. “just for fun”
– Independent sites vs. delivering data to “official” databases
– Different tools for the user
– All are “bottom-up” approaches
9. foundation “Natuurinformatie”
● Foundation for the observation of nature
● Websites:
– http://waarnemingen.be (Belgium)
– http://waarneming.nl (Netherlands)
– http://observado.org (World)
● Data are freely usable
● Mobile applications
● Cooperation with e.g. the Global Biodiversity Information Facility
(GBIF), WorldBirds and the Dutch National Database Flora and
Fauna.
● Daily quality control by expert volunteers
● Many tools for the user
14. artportalen.se
● Swedish citizen science portal
● Run by the Swedish Species Information Centre and
Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
● Reporting systems for fish, birds, other vertebrates,
plants, fungi, insects, marine invertebrates
● Data are free for use
● Protection of “confidential” observations
● Quality control system by experts
19. http://www.naturgucker.de /
http://enjoynature.net
● “Network for nature observations” (Germany, Austria, worldwide)
● Aims:
– publish data that usually would live in personal computers and notebooks
only
– Help nature conservation work
– Inspire people to observe nature
● Free data access
● Protection of “confidential” observations
● Tools for the user (“personalized data centre”)
● Community-based quality control plus additional advisory board of experts
● Cooperation with NABU (NAture and Biodiversity Conservation Union of
Germany, Birdlife Germany) and other NGOs
27. other projects & initiatives
● COBWEB – EU-funded project with 13 partners to enable citizens to collect
environmental data using mobile devices from UNESCO Biosphere Reserves
● Citizen Science Alliance – Collaboration of 7 partners to create online citizen
science projects to involve the public in academic research
● EveryAware - EU-funded project, with 5 partners, intending to integrate
environmental monitoring, awareness enhancement and behavioural change by
creating a new technological platform combining sensing technologies, networking
applications and data-processing tools.
● Zooniverse - framework to support and host citizen science projects, as well as a
committed and enthusiastic host of volunteers.
● anymals+plants: funded by German government, develops mobile apps &
provides social network for nature observations
● Naturewatch/EyeOnEarth: collaboration between the European Environmental
Agency and communities of voluntary citizen scientists in pilot European Countries
28. food for thought...
● Role of ViBRANT / Scratchpads
● Functionality of software
● Collaborations / interoperability between projects
● How to unlock / reuse the data → GBIF / BDJ / … ?
● Quality control
● Target communities / user analysis
● Outreach
● Possibilities for funding?