An initial exploration of Citizen Science

Working Paper: Citizen Science
O Riordan, Niamh, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, n.oriordan@yahoo.com

Motivation for the research
Citizen science (also known as crowd science, crowd-sourced science, or networked science) is scientific
research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists (Wikipedia1). According
to Muki Haklay, the phenomenon of Citizen Science is attracting increased attention in academic forums,
on social networks and on national print and broadcast media2. This interest is primarily driven by the
rise of electronically mediated forms of Citizen Science which are enabling fundamentally new modes of
interaction between university, organizational, individual and governmental stakeholders.
This report examines the emergence of citizen science within the broader context of academic research
and its relevance to practice. The report focuses specifically on identifying the opportunities afforded by
citizen science and the key obstacles that need to be overcome if citizen science initiatives are to benefit
governmental, organizational and individual stakeholders. The report begins by reviewing the existing
literature on citizen science. This review focuses on defining the phenomenon of interest, sketching the
historical context of it. The review then presents an analysis of the main opportunities and challenges
associated with it. Using this analysis, a set of research questions are identified and an initial research
plan is presented. The report concludes by considering the potential contributions of this research project
to existing knowledge on citizen science.

Theoretical background
The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or
correcting and integrating previous knowledge (Goldhaber and Nieto, 2010). It has, since the 17th
century, been one of the primary modes for scholarly investigation. It is primarily as a result of the
scientific method and advances in technology that the pace of innovation and discovery has increased so
significantly in the past 150 years (Arbesman, 2009). This, in turn, has led to economic growth at a
national level (Rosenberg, 1974), increased innovation in firms (Rae-Dupree, 2013), and improvements
in things like health and well-being at the individual level (Digital Agenda for Europe, 2013). Recognizing
the benefits associated with both basic and applied forms of research, governmental and organizational
stakeholders have traditionally been responsible for funding scientific research in academic institutions
(see Figure 1). Indeed, as a result of the emergence of crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter, citizens are
increasingly involved in directly funding scientific and technological research and innovation (O Riordan,
2013).

1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science Accessed October 23rd 2013

http://povesham.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/gartners-hype-cycle-and-citizen-science/ Accessed
October 23rd 2013
2

1

Working paper: Citizen Science | Dr Niamh O Riordan, NUI Galway, Ireland.

Figure 1. Visualizing the roles of governmental, organizational, university and individual stakeholders in
the conduct of scientific research.
It is because scientific research is effectively sponsored by governments, organizations and individuals,
that researchers are increasingly asked to scrutinize the (immediate) impact of their work in practice.
With the emergence of citizen science, researchers are beginning to understand that one of the most
effective ways of ensuring that their work has an immediate impact is to directly involve stakeholders in
the process of doing research.

Identifying the current gaps in our understanding
Formally, citizen science has been defined as "the systematic collection and analysis of data; development
of technology; testing of natural phenomena; and the dissemination of these activities by researchers on a
primarily a vocational basis" (Open Scientist, 2013). More informally, citizen science is scientific research
conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists, often by crowdsourcing and
crowdfunding3. Citizen scientists can adopt a variety of roles in citizen science projects. These include:
gathering or analyzing data that will be analyzed by professional researchers, volunteering at a research
center or joining a research expedition, competing in science competitions and even building their own
instructions or laboratories to gather data for their own experiments or as part of a larger project (ibid.).
Research on citizen science to date have investigated citizens' motivations and experiences of
participation (Raddick et al, 2010; Trumball et al., 2000), the challenges and benefits of citizen science

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2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science Accessed October 23rd 2013


(e.g. Dickinson et al., 2010), and the evaluation of citizen science research projects (e.g. Cohn, 2008;
Brossard et al., 2005).
In an effort to generate a typology of citizen science projects, Wiggins et al (2011) identify a number of
different types of research project that are amenable to citizen science approaches. These include:
(1) Action oriented citizen science projects which encourage participant intervention in local
concerns and the use of scientific research as a tool to support civic agendas
(2) Conservation projects which support stewardship and natural resource management goals
(3) Educational projects which are designed to make education and outreach the primary goal of the
project
Wiggins et al (2011), identify a fourth category of citizen science project, the virtual citizen science project.
The authors define virtual citizen science projects as those that are fully mediated by ICTs and a well
known example of a virtual citizen science project is Galaxy Zoo, a interactive project that allows the user
to participate in a large-scale project of galaxy research4.
According to Wiggins et al (2011), virtual citizen science projects are unlike other kinds of citizen science
projects and as such, have not been fully examined in prior research on citizen science. Nevertheless,
these kinds of projects have strong potential. This can best be appreciated by considering the success of
first generation open science projects like the Human Genome Project where research objectives far
beyond the capabilities of a single institution or research group were achieved using crowds of research
scientists. For the remainder of this review, we therefore focus specifically on virtual citizen science
projects (VCSPs).
The research to date indicates that virtual citizen science projects are a highly efficient use of resources,
which is particularly important in a time of economic recession when resources are scarce. At the same
time, these projects have the capacity to allow researchers to conduct projects on a scale that would not
otherwise be viable through traditional institutional and funding structures. Just as open source software
benefits from the principle that “with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” (Raymond, 2000), virtual
citizen science projects allow researchers to tackle problems that might otherwise be beyond the scope of
their capabilities.
Nevertheless, there are some key challenges that must be overcome if the opportunities afforded by virtual
citizen science projects are to be fully realized.
•

There are serious question marks about the intellectual property rights issues associated with
citizen science. In a large virtual citizen science project (VCSP), dozens or even hundreds of
individuals may make a contribution to a new discovery. In that scenario, authorship (the
traditional vehicle for attributing intellectual property rights) is inapplicable. This has serious
implications for publishers of academic journals as well and there is very little clarity on how it
might be overcome.

•

Scientists, for generations, have used the peer review process as a collaborative mechanism for
ensuring and evaluating the quality of research (ibid). The difficulty with opening up access to
scientific publications and scientific data to the public is that poorly qualified individuals may be
in a position to review scientific work. This could have significant negative implications for
scientific progress.

Specifying the research questions
Based on this analysis, we have identified three main areas where we feel there is a pressing need for
research.

4

See http://www.galaxyzoo.org/, accessed October 23rd 2013

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The first area concerns the existing data infrastructures that are used to support citizen science
initiatives. It is clear that the requirements of a citizen science project in terms of data protection differ
quite substantially from existing collaborative science projects and research is needed to investigate the
design, development and implementation of new and effective platforms for creating, storing and
transferring the data that is analysed in citizen science projects.
The second main area relates to concerns about the validity or trustworthiness of scientific results
generated by citizen science projects. In the first instance, there is a need to develop new ways of both
measuring and improving the scientific quality of citizen science research. In the second instance, there is
a need to develop new ways of sharing or publishing the results of citizen science projects together with
these assessments of quality. In this regard, we feel that a key enabler of citizen science will be the
establishment of more open and transparent ways of accessing existing research – which has, in the end,
been bought and paid for by the citizen - are developed. Without this, our citizen scientists are effectively
working in the dark.
The third area relates to concerns about possible ethical issues in citizen science research contexts. In
traditional scientific laboratories, researchers are expected to submit their proposals to institutional
ethical review committees whose job it is to ensure that the research is ethically sound. Citizen scientists
do not have access to the same protections. Research is needed to investigate the current approach to
ethical review in citizen science projects and to propose and evaluate possible new ethical review
mechanisms for citizen science.

Acknowledgements
I would like to gratefully acknowledge the input that my fourth year class on Contemporary Issues in
Information Systems gave to the articulation of interesting and useful research questions on Citizen
Science.

Reference list
Arbesman, S. 2009. Quantifying the Ease of Scientific Discovery. Working paper available at
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0912.1567.pdf, accessed October 23rd 2013
Brossard, Dominique, Bruce Lewenstein, and Rick Bonney. "Scientific knowledge and attitude change:
The impact of a citizen science project." International Journal of Science Education 27.9 (2005): 10991121.
Digital Agenda for Europe. (2013). eHealth projects - Research and Innovation in the field of ICT for
Health and Wellbeing: an overview. Available at http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/ehealthprojects-research-and-innovation-field-ict-health-and-wellbeing-overview
Goldhaber, A. S., & Nieto, M. M. (2010). Photon and graviton mass limits. Reviews of Modern Physics,
82(1), 939.
Cohn, Jeffrey P. "Citizen science: Can volunteers do real research?." BioScience 58.3 (2008): 192-197.
Open Scientist. "Finalizing a Definition of "Citizen Science" and "Citizen Scientists"". 2011-09-03.
Retrieved 2012-10-11.
O Riordan, N. (2013). Crowd funding: an exploration. Working paper.
Raddick, M. J., Bracey, G., Gay, P. L., Lintott, C. J., Murray, P., Schawinski, K., & Vandenberg, J. (2010).
Galaxy zoo: Exploring the motivations of citizen science volunteers. Astronomy Education Review, 9,
010103.
Rae-Dupree, J. US Scientists Are Leaving The Country And Taking The Innovation Economy With Them.
Forbes. 25th September, 2013. Available at
http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetraedupree/2013/09/25/us-scientists-are-leaving-the-country-andtaking-the-innovation-economy-with-them/

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Raymond, E. S. (2010). The cathedral and the bazaar. Available at
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/
Rosenberg, N. (1974). Science, Invention and Economic Growth. The Economic Journal, 84(333), pp. 90108
Trumbull, Deborah J., et al. "Thinking scientifically during participation in a citizen‐science project."
Science Education 84.2 (2000): 265-275.
Wiggins, A., & Crowston, K. (2011, January). From conservation to crowdsourcing: A typology of citizen
science. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 1-10). IEEE.

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