Roundtable on Citizen Science

1. The role of interoperability in encouraging
participation in citizen science_
1000001 Labs Luigi Ceccaroni
XXIII Congreso Español de Ornitología
Badajoz, November 4th
, 2017

2. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
Kinds of participation: from PUS to PES
❏Public Understanding of Science
❏ Inquiring and acting about the nature and extent of public ignorance
around science
❏ Commitment to “top-down” communication
❏Public Engagement in Science
❏ More “symmetrical” approach
❏ Citizen empowerment
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3. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
Key role: civic educators
❏Principal instigators for the engagement of citizens
❏ In affairs of public interest (including scientific research)
❏Development and implementation of educational strategies
❏Design of plans to provide certain information to certain
people
❏Opening up opportunities for others to learn in certain ways
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4. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
A new conceptual model for engagement
❏Recruitment of new citizen observers from society at large
❏Consolidation and expansion of existing citizen-science
projects
❏Improvement of knowledge transfer and capacity building
❏Training and community building of local-networks leaders
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5. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
Advantages of common knowledge
representations and interoperability
❏Different data repositories can be analysed together
❏Different communities can be served
❏Cost-efficiency in technology development in all citizen-
science projects
❏Consistent, scalable approach to citizen science data-
management worldwide
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6. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
Challanges of interoperability
❏ Birdtrack
❏ Ornitho
❏ eBird
❏ Natusfera
❏ Sacre
❏ Sacin
❏ Noctua
❏ ...
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❏ BioCollect – Atlas of Living
Australia
❏ SciStarter
❏ PPSR_CORE (CitSci.org)
❏ The Federal Crowdsourcing
and Citizen Science Catalog
❏ Dublin Core
❏ GBIF (IPT)
❏ ...

7. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
Main actors involved
❏ECSA
❏CSA
❏ACSA
❏CS COST Action
❏OGC
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8. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
Impact of interoperability on engagement
❏Access to a larger set of data
❏Increased recognition across platforms
❏Increased ability to create new projects
❏Better understanding of global phenomena
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9. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
Interoperability as part of technological
improvements of citizen science
❏More automation, more fun, more participation
❏Sharing is everything:
 Participants - sharing participants and enabling them to
progress from one project to another
 Data - data not in silos and easily combined
(interoperability needed) to generate greater insights
 Scale - increased likelihood for projects to expand and
grow as a result of the above
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10. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
New opportunities
❏Framing bird-monitoring technologies used by citizens as a
form of public engagement that can be included within
European Commission’s concept of Open Innovation: based
on the quadruple-helix model, for example in relation to the
Internet of Things and Smart Cities
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11. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
New opportunities
❏Creation of several monitoring blueprints for different socio-
cultural contexts
❏Working on the transition of certain aspects of bird-
monitoring technologies and citizen observatories from
human action to AI
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12. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
New opportunities
❏Evolving the bird-monitoring platforms towards adaptive
hypermedia systems that track the user’s behaviour to
determine what the user’s background, experience,
knowledge and interests are, and then provide a
personalised educational/environmental experience
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13. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
New opportunities
❏Extending interoperability and data quality control beyond
bird monitoring, together with international citizen-science
associations, COST action, large EU projects
❏Understanding and better managing temporal and spatial
bias
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14. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
New opportunities
❏Finding specific links between bird-monitoring technologies
and EU policy making, together with other citizen
observatories, which are already doing it (e.g., LandSense)
❏Novel analysis and decision-support tools
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15. Luigi Ceccaroni - The role of interoperability in encouraging participation
in citizen science
The role of interoperability in encouraging
participation in citizen science
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Citizen science is work undertaken by civic
educators together with citizen
communities to advance science, foster a
broad scientific mentality, and/or
encourage democratic engagement, which
allows society to deal rationally with
complex modern problems
Thank you!
www.1000001labs.org
Luigi Ceccaroni
luigi@1000001labs.org
Skype: luigi.ceccaroni