Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) is a situated, bottom-up practice that takes into account local needs, practices and culture and works with broad networks of people to design and build new devices and knowledge creation processes that can transform the world. The ExCiteS group at UCL was set up to support the implementation of this concept through the development of theories, methodologies, processes, and technologies that allow any community, regardless of (technical) literacy, to engage in citizen science projects that produce results that are meaningful and useful for them. Stemming from theoretical foundations in participatory action research and public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS), our technologies are designed to carry values with them. Once we visit these values, we can see how they turn into code, and ask how successful these efforts are, using cases in the Amazon, Congo-basin, Namibia, UK, and Malta.

1. Extreme Citizen Science technologies:
attempting to embed values in code
Muki Haklay, Extreme Citizen Science group
Department of Geography, UCL
Twitter: @mhaklay / @ucl_excites

2. Acknowledgement
This talk would not be possible without the generosity of
the many people and communities that we have worked
with over the years…

3. Acknowledgement
… and the funders, project partners, and sponsors that
we’ve worked with (and will work with in the future)

4. Can we create technologies that will deliver Deep
Democratisation of technological projects?
• Background – from participatory mapping to
citizen science
• Theoretical foundations: Feenberg’s Deep
Democratisation)
• Guidelines/practices
• Values and technologies – 3 iterations
Outline

5. FROM PARTICIPATORY MAPPING TO
CITIZEN SCIENCE

6. 1980s
• Participatory
Rural Appraisal
• Participatory
Learning and
Action
1990s
• Public
Participation
GIS (PPGIS)
• Participatory
GIS (PGIS)
2000s
• Volunteered /
Crowdsourced
Geographic
information
• Participatory
Sensing
2010s
• Citizen Science
APB-CMX
Harry Wood 2010

7. 40.1. In sustainable development, everyone is a user
and provider of information considered in the broad
sense. That includes data, information, appropriately
packaged experience and knowledge. The need for
information arises at all levels, from that of senior
decision makers at the national and international
levels to the grass-roots and individual levels.
Agenda 21, Chapter 40: Information for
Decision Making - 1992

8. GIS are hard to use, facilitation is hard, too
Aurigi, A., Batty, S., Bloomfield, D., Boott, R., Clark, J., Haklay, M., Harrison, C., Heppell, K., Moreley, J. and Thornton, C. (1999), UCL Brownfield Research Network, University
College London, London, UK, 42 pp
1998

9. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

10. • In 1969, based on her
experience at the US
department for Housing,
Education and Welfare
(HUD), Sherry Rubin
Arnstein developed a
typology of citizen
participation –
Arnstein’s ladder
Arnstein, S.R., 1969. A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of planners, 35(4), pp.216-224.
Participatory Planning / decision making

11. The Arnstein ladder factory

12. Citizen Science – Irwin/Bonney versions
Living Bird, 1996

13. Post-Normal
Science
• Identifying conditions for
opening up science/society
processes
• Post-Normal Science:
“facts are uncertain, values
in dispute, stakes high, and
decisions urgent.”
• Use of “extended peer-
communities”
Funtowicz, S.O. & Ravetz, J.R., 1993. Science for the post-normal age, Futures 25:7, 739-755.

14. Critical philosophy of technology:
Andrew Feenberg / Albert Borgmann

15. Main positions in Philosophy of Technology
Technology is: Autonomous Humanly Controlled
Neutral (complete
separation of means
and ends)
Determinism
(traditional Marxism)
Instrumentalism
(liberal faith in
progress)
Value-laden
(means form a way of
life that includes ends)
Substantivism (means
and ends linked in a
system)
Critical Theory (choice
of alternative means-
ends systems)
Source: Feenberg, A. (1999) Questioning Technology, Routledge, New York.

16. Feenberg’s Deep Democratisation
• “Technical representation is not primarily about
the selection of a trusted personnel, but involves
the embodiment of social and political demands in
technical codes.” (p. 142)
• Technology can be also change from within,
through an intervention by the users, but
technology can be designed to enable it
Source: Feenberg, A. (1999) Questioning Technology, Routledge, New York.

17. • Let’s say that we can engage people, as “extended
peer-communities”/“citizen control”, in developing
technologies – will we get Deep Democratisation?
• What are the possibilities and where are the limits?
Core questions

18. PRINCIPLES / PRACTICE

19. • Use of Participatory Action Research (PAR)
• Integrating technological/quantitative research
and ethnographic/qualitative research approaches
• Integrating technology development with science,
technology, and society research. Encouraging
explicit inputs from social theory
A Set of guiding principles

20. • Work with community and place, beyond
‘methodological individualism’
There is such thing as society

21. • Integrate technology
with a social process,
and take account of
the context
Context: society, technology, politics
Wider
context
Social
context
Mapping
• Politics
• Economics
• Local
inclusiveness
• Technical ability
• Views /
Perceptions
• Facts / Evidence

22. • Directed process, with deliberate open elements to
ensure co-design and local control
Directed, but open, process

23. • Work with people where
they are, don’t expect
them to come to you
(physically, and digitally)
Go where people are

24. • Keep it simple, in order
to make it inclusive
(no cutting edge
technology, unless
there is a very good
reason for it)
Keep it very simple

25. Aiming for assertive inclusiveness
• Passive inclusiveness – “we’ll build it and they’ll
come”. Websites, events, and processes that do not
intentionally put obstacles to the participation of
under-represented groups (most contributory
citizen science)
• Assertive inclusiveness – reaching out to under-
represented groups, considering what obstacles
they will face and taking them into account in the
design and implementation of a project

26. Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) is a situated,
bottom-up practice that takes into account
local needs, practices and culture and works
with broad networks of people to design and
build new devices and knowledge creation
processes that can transform the world.
Extreme Citizen Science

27. Participation in citizen science
• Collaborative science – problem definition,
data collection and analysisLevel 4 ‘Extreme’
• Participation in problem definition
and data collection
Level 3 ‘Participatory
science’
• Citizens as basic interpreters
Level 2 ‘Distributed
intelligence’
• Citizens as sensors
Level 1
‘Crowdsourcing’
Haklay. 2013. Citizen Science and volunteered geographic information: Overview and typology of participation, Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge

28. TECHNOLOGY & PROCESS:
ITERATION I
ExCiteS & Mapping for Change

29. Mapping for Change Process
Introduction to existing
public information
General perception
mapping
Discussion & initial
priorities setting
Digitisation, visualisation
and discussion
Website and online map
Citizen Science and data
gathering

30. Positive
Youth or ASB
Litter/Rubbish/Graffiti
General Maintenance
Safety
Traffic/Transport/Parking
Other
Facility Improvements
2008

31. 2008LCY Noise Mapping

32. Ellul, C., Haklay, M. Francis, L. And Rahemtulla, H., 2009, A Mechanism to Create Community Maps for Non-Technical users, The International Conference on Advanced
Geographic Information Systems & Web Services – GEOWS 2009
2009

33. Insights from Iteration I
• With a limited effort, the first generation of web
mapping Application Programming Interfaces
(APIs) supported development of accessible web
apps. Community maps started to be created.
• Digital divides (and background familiarity with
Ordnance Survey/A-Z mapping) mean that paper
maps are central to the process.

34. Insights from Iteration I
• Technical development is embedded with the
participatory team – working in the same space,
participating in events.
• Deep Democratisation = Digital + Paper +
Easy to use sensors + Structured, but open,
process

35. TECHNOLOGY & PROCESS:
ITERATION II
ExCiteS & Mapping for Change

36. Problem
definition
Data collection
Visualisation &
analysis
Action
Classification &
basic analysis
Basic School
High School
University/
College
Postgraduate
PhD
Literacy

37. Engagement: Free, Prior Informed Consent (FPIC)

38. Lewis, J., 2012. How to implement free, prior informed consent (FPIC). PL&A

40. Participatory software design

43. Participatory Software design

44. Training and
support

45. Insights from Iteration II
• When trying to implement assertive inclusiveness,
ethics, culture, power, and technology collide
• Local politics and abilities of intermediaries are
critical
• Deep Democratisation = Anthropology &
Computer Science close collaboration + affordable
smartphone + much consideration of context and
culture

46. TECHNOLOGY & PROCESS:
ITERATION III
ExCiteS & Mapping for Change

47. Towards Intelligent Maps

48. Experimenting with maps

51. Nyea Nyea, Namibia

52. Maasai Mara, Kenya

53. Gbiné, Cameroon

54. THE POSSIBILITY OF DEEP
DEMOCRATISATION
ExCiteS & Mapping for Change

55. Potentials
• Evolving principles from HCI, development, and
social theory are starting to become “the ExCiteS
cookbook”
• Reusing and adapting existing technologies
provides an accessible, and potentially extensible
solutions
• Integrating values into codes is actually
embedding technology in social practices

56. Potentials
• Mix teams, with technologists going to the field
(generally, they don’t) and discussing solutions in
context is critical to the process
• We’ve seen people taking the technologies, and
the guidance, and use them in a similar way (e.g. in
Malta or D-NOSES project), so values and processes
can travel

57. Limitations
• Technology requires a very significant investment
in creating and maintaining (Sappelli, GeoKey,
Community Maps) in cycles of 5 years
• Assertive inclusiveness is expensive – even when
standard technologies are used
• The scope for technological intervention is set by
wider systems – and this has gone down over the
last decade (e.g. Android or the wider Web)

58. Limitations
• Persistence Digital divides – access to technology
(built in obsolescence), knowledge (e.g. illiteracy),
costs or connectivity, etc.
• Scaling require attention and investment of time
and effort, and quicker and shallower solutions are
sometime attractive.

59. • ExCiteS works across a range of topics, focusing on
participatory methodologies
• Drawing on theories and knowledge from multiple
fields of research
• Merging quantitative and qualitative
methodologies
• Exploring the tools, techniques, methodologies,
and theories of citizen science and participatory
mapping
Summary

60. Follow us:
– http://www.ucl.ac.uk/excites
– Twitter: @UCL_ExCiteS
– Blog:
http://uclexcites.wordpress.com
The work of ExCiteS is supported by EPSRC, ERC, EU
FP7, EU H2020, RGS, Esri, Forest People Program,
Forests Monitor, WRI and all the people in communities
that we’ve worked with over the years