A Symposium and Workshop to Recommend Biodiversity Informatics Best Practices for Citizen Science Programs, October 27-31, 2014, Jonkoping, Sweden

University Of Massachusetts Boston, Dorchester MA

Investigators

Abstract

The University of Massachussets Boston is awarded a grant to support a symposium and workshop to bring together biodiversity scientists, citizen science project leaders, and biodiversity information scientists to review case studies of programs and propose best practices based on science and informatics standards. The worshop will be held in Jönköping, Sweden together with the annual meeting of Biodiversity Information Standards Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG). Citizen science projects, such as CitiSci.org, eBird, and REEF, provide unique and valuable species occurrence records because they can mobilize citizens to collect data in ways that scientists, alone, cannot. Citizen Science can be thought of as a new kind of instrument that has demonstrated its ability to provide important biodiversity data. However, the tradeoffs between engaging and training people to participate and collecting useful scientific data are not well understood. Some projects, developed in an education and outreach framework, aim to simply engage and inform participants in science activities, while others demand a much higher degree of skill and commitment to compile scientifically sophisticated observations. The paper resulting from the symposium/workshop provides guidance and best practice about the tensions between recruiting, engaging, and training participants and ensuring a high value of the data collected. In addition, the workshop provides guidance about how to improve and quantify data quality, as there are no established procedures for calibrating this new kind of instrument, we call Citizen Science. The symposium/ workshop and resulting paper raises the prominence of Citizen Science activities in biodiversity science and articulates the need for new standards in biodiversity informatics. This effort drafts recommendations to address unique needs to Citizen Science biodiversity data, such as the need to incorporate common names standards, and metadata on survey methods and analysis techniques to facilitate data re-use from Citizen Science programs. Citizen Science programs are increasingly used in formal K-16 and informal science education settings expanding opportunities of people to do authentic science and increase science literacy and awareness of local environmental issues. The resulting recommendation and best practices are shared with new Citizen Science Alliance organization and their recently formed technology committee. This information can guide designers and program managers of citizen science projects who want to improve the scientific quality of the data they produce. Our activities initiate a partnership between the Biodiversity Information Standards (TWDG) and Citizen Science Alliance that can support biodiversity standards development for Citizen Science.