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Participatory design of citizen science experiments
Abstract
This article describes and analyzes the collaborative design of a citizen science research project through co-creation. Three groups of secondary school students and a team of scientists conceived three experiments on human behavior and social capital in urban and public spaces. The study goal is to address how interdisciplinary work and attention to social concerns and needs, as well as the collective construction of research questions, can be integrated into scientific research. The 95 students participating in the project answered a survey to evaluate their perception about the dynamics and tools used in the co-creation process of each experiment, and the five scientists responded to a semi-structured interview. The results from the survey and interviews demonstrate how citizen science can achieve a "co-created" modality beyond the usual "contributory" paradigm, which usually only involves the public or amateurs in data collection stages. This type of more collaborative science was made possible by the adaptation of materials and facilitation mechanisms, as well as the promotion of key aspects in research such as trust, creativity and transparency. The results also point to the possibility of adopting similar co-design strategies in other contexts of scientific collaboration and collaborative knowledge generation.
... Our OpenSystems research group [42] has been developing during the last decade in urban contexts and mostly in the Barcelona (Spain) metropolitan area [29,38,[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55]. The current manuscript is not a review paper of citizen science projects from the context of social physics as there are still too few citizen science experiences in this context. ...
... If we talk about social phenomena, both the motivation and the value of the co-produced knowledge are deeply involved in participants' everyday life, and the results can in turn influence policies and actions to promote social change [28,29,99]. In a broader level, benefits also cover a wide list of aspects that surpass scientific interest and include innovative STEM or STEAM education [43,100], democratic values enhancement [101], social inclusion promotion [102,103], or evidence-based policy making [29,99,104,105]. Furthermore, citizen science practices can be key in the problem identification and agenda setting in scientific research related to societal problems [1] or become a key element in sustainability transitions [104,105]. ...
Social physics is an active and diverse field in which many scientists with formal training in physics study a broad class of complex social phenomena. Social physics investigates societal problems but most often does not count on the active and conscious participation of the citizens. We here want to support the idea that citizen science, and more particularly citizen social science, can contribute to the broad field of social physics. The current manuscript is not a review paper of citizen science projects from the context of social physics as there are still too few experiences in this context. We, in contrast, present a selection of our own experiences during the last decade to extract key learnings and further reflect on citizen science practices for social physics. We first describe several human mobility experiments in urban contexts with the participation of concerned young students, old women, or other different groups of neighbors. We second share how we have studied community mental healthcare provision in collaboration with a civil society organization and with the intense involvement of persons with lived experience in mental health. In both cases, we narrow down the discussion to digital tools being used and the involved participatory dynamics. In this way, we share key learnings to enhance a synergistic relationship between social physics and citizen science and with the aim of increasing the societal impact of the research on complex social phenomena.
... Co-creation sessions were held with each of the groups to express concerns about the use of public space for social interactions. The sessions also served to develop a robust experimental protocol to collect mobility data that can be used to propose interventions in public space [88,89]. The communities finally involved throughout a larger call for participation were a class from the public school La Guàrdia (11-12 years old) and their teachers, the association of neighbors (with families and thus following a diverse age profile) and a senior citizen's organization (more than 65 years old). ...
Cities are complex systems that demand integrated approaches, with increasing attention focused on the neighborhood level. This study examines the interplay between expert-based mapping and citizen science in the Primer de Maig neighborhood of Granollers, Catalonia, Spain--an area marked by poor-quality public spaces and long-standing socio-economic challenges. Seventy-two residents were organized into 19 groups to record their pedestrian mobility while engaging in protocolized playful social actions. Their GPS identified opportunity units for meaningful public space activation. Although 56% of observed actions occurred within expert-defined units, the remaining 44% took place elsewhere. Clustering analysis of geo-located action stops revealed seven distinct clusters, highlighting overlooked areas with significant social potential. These findings underscore the complementarity of top-down and bottom-up approaches, demonstrating how citizen science and community science approaches enriches urban diagnostics by integrating subjective, community-based perspectives in public space placemaking and informing inclusive, adaptive sustainable urban transformation strategies.
... Fuente: Adaptado de (Senabre et al., 2018). ...
En el presente trabajo, se evaluó la calidad del agua en las playas Bocagrande, Crespo y Playa Azul La Boquilla en Cartagena, Colombia, durante una época de transición en junio y julio. Se seleccionaron los años 2019, 2022 y 2023, marcando un análisis antes y después de la pandemia de COVID-19, con un seguimiento continuo en 2023 para analizar las variaciones en la calidad del agua.
Se abordaron objetivos puntuales como el análisis espacio-temporal durante los períodos de transición usando el cálculo de ICAs (ICAM). También se identificaron factores determinantes que afectan la calidad del agua en relación con el turismo de sol y playa. Además, se propuso un ordenamiento para Playa Crespo, evaluando también las playas Bocagrande y Playa Azul La Boquilla. Se llevaron a cabo
actividades de educación y sensibilización, y se evaluaron los ICAs para cada parámetro medido.
Asimismo, se realizó una encuesta sobre la percepción del turista en cuanto a la calidad ambiental y la situación de la playa, incluyendo preguntas sobre la certificación de bandera azul. Finalmente, se propuso una ruta para la gestión sostenible de la calidad del agua en estas playas.
... Esta última tiene que ver con el enfoque de "aprender/haciendo" que propone Romero-Frías & Robinson-García (2017) para los laboratorios sociales, a partir de los cuales se buscan consolidar comunidades de práctica y de aprendizaje donde los conocimientos puedan ser creados y compartidos para su uso público desde la perspectiva de innovación y ciencia abierta (Ramírez & García-Peñalvo, 2018;Silva, 2020). Lo anterior, se relaciona con la implementación de procesos de ciencia ciudadana que motiva la construcción colectiva de preguntas de investigación (Senabre et al., 2018). ...
Para qué generamos conocimientos desde las instituciones de educación superior es un interrogante permanente en el mundo de la ciencia y de la vida. Algunos autores relacionan su propósito con la necesidad de que el conocimiento sea apropiado por la sociedad general para la transformación de los territorios. Este artículo busca validar la actualidad del concepto de apropiación social del conocimiento y su relación con la inteligencia colectiva, la co-creación y la didáctica especial. Se usó una metodología cualitativa con enfoque hermenéutico para la revisión de 49 textos de autores de diferentes países de los cinco continentes. Se encontró que la apropiación social del conocimiento es un concepto de mucha actualidad y que responde al propósito de la generación del conocimiento. Su relación con los conceptos de inteligencia colectiva, co-creación y didáctica especial se identifica a partir de la referencia directa o indirecta que cada uno hace respecto a la importancia de la creación colectiva, la comunicación y el uso de los conocimientos; pero no se encontró una investigación que plantee la relación directa de estos cuatro conceptos entre sí. Se concluye que el concepto de apropiación social del conocimiento tiene una relación directa con estos conceptos porque a partir de una didáctica especial, es decir, de un proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje que facilite la activación de la inteligencia colectiva y la co-creación entre los participantes, se puede lograr que el conocimiento generado se apropie y transforme la vida.
... In this way, data is generated through citizen science. The collaboration between citizens and the scientific community, contributing to the analysis of a specific problem, constitutes what is known as citizen science (Senabre et al., 2018). The population involved in the analysis or data collection actively participates with a potential scientific benefit. ...
This study characterises the threat due to visits by swarms of
jellyfish on the coast of the province of Malaga, Spain, one of the most touristic
in Spain. To achieve this objective, it uses the data collected by the Infomedusa
and Medusapp applications, in addition to the historical data collected in the
jellyfish layer provided by the Andalusian regional government. A geographic
information system is used for the geolocation and compilation of the data
provided by the three sources. The result is maps where you can see the areas
of the province most exposed to the arrival of jellyfish based on recorded
historical data. The information generated is very useful and could be combined
with beach carrying capacity maps for better risk management due to the arrival
of jellyfish in the province.
... Using AutSPACEs as a case study, we highlight how we used participatory design and research methods (Spinuzzi, 2005;Senabre Hidalgo et al., 2018) to collaboratively collect and analyze data to uncover particular content moderation requirements and then co-design moderation approaches that address these. Our goal is to use this case study to demonstrate how co-design can be a powerful tool to create content moderation policies that are rooted in evidence-based user requirements to provide other online platform creators-in citizen science and beyond-with an approach that they adapt to co-develop their own content moderation approaches. ...
The moderation of user-generated content on online platforms remains a key solution to protecting people online, but also remains a perpetual challenge as the appropriateness of content moderation guidelines depends on the online community that they aim to govern. This challenge affects marginalized groups in particular, as they more frequently experience online abuse but also end up falsely being the target of content-moderation guidelines. While there have been calls for democratic, community-moderation, there has so far been little research into how to implement such approaches. Here, we present the co-creation of content moderation strategies with the users of an online platform to address some of these challenges. Within the context of AutSPACEs—an online citizen science platform that aims to allow autistic people to share their own sensory processing experiences publicly—we used a community-based and participatory approach to co-design a content moderation solution that would fit the preferences, priorities, and needs of its autistic user community. We outline how this approach helped us discover context-specific moderation dilemmas around participant safety and well-being and how we addressed those. These trade-offs have resulted in a moderation design that differs from more general social networks in aspects such as how to contribute, when to moderate, and what to moderate. While these dilemmas, processes, and solutions are specific to the context of AutSPACEs, we highlight how the co-design approach itself could be applied and useful for other communities to uncover challenges and help other online spaces to embed safety and empowerment.
Analiza los enfoques de ciencia abierta a nível mundial y del país en tiempos del Covid-19, ya que registró 2, 16 millones de muertos. El rol de las instituciones culturales como bibliotecas universitarias ofrecieron servicios novedosos en forma digital. Se destacan aportes de Biblioteca Nacional, Municipalidad de Lima, Archivo General de la Nación. Se planteó el problema de investigacion: ¿Cómo se relaciona la ciencia abierta con las bibliotecas universitarias en tiempos del Covid-19? La ciencia abierta es el deseo de millones de personas en el mundo que aspiran a acceder a la información en forma libre, ordenada y sistematizada. El método utilizado fue cuantitativo, tipo de investigación exploratoria, nível de investigacion descriptiva correlacional, diseño de investigación es no experimental. Las técnicas utilizadas fueron observación estructurada, cuestionario para conocer percepciones de investigadores que visualizaron los webinars y conferencias realizadas por las bibliotecas universitarias e instituciones culturales del país. Entre los resultados obtenidos: El 66, 7 % respondió que las bibliotecas universitarias si tienen actualizados sus repositorios y va con uno de los objetivos de la ciencia abierta ofrecer información relevante para los investigadores. Mientras que, 33, 3% afirmó en forma negativa que los repositorios no se encuentran actualizados. Las instituciones culturales mencionadas por encuestados destacaron con 83, 3 % correspondió a Biblioteca Nacional del Perú (BNP) realizó webinars. Mientras que, Casa de la Literatura representó16, 7 %. Las Universidades como UNMSM, PUCP, Universidad del Pacifico, Universidad de Lima, Universidad César Vallejo Lima Norte, Universidad Autónoma a través de sus bibliotecas realizaron servicios innovadores hacia sus docentes, alumnos, personal administrativo y egresados en tiempos de pandemia. En la discusión, se evidenció que ciencia abierta se relaciona significativamente con las bibliotecas universitarias en tiempos de covid-19 en Lima Metropolitana. Una de las conclusiones fue las universidades realizaron webinars durante los años 2020 y 2021 para poder ofrecer temas de actualidad, habilidades blandas, variables socioemocionales, temas de bibliotecología, entre otros. Durante este período, los repositorios institucionales de las universidades nacionales y privadas estuvieron a disposición en forma permanente por investigadores, tesistas, alumnos y egresados
The article discusses the involvement of Polish libraries in citizen science. Based on a survey of library staff, the author answers whether Polish libraries are involved in promoting the idea of citizen science, how they participate in projects in this field and what barriers they encounter doing so. The research used the diagnostic survey method. The survey questionnaire contained nine questions and demographics. The survey was available in the LimeSurvey system from November 2, 2023, to January 31, 2024. A link to the survey was sent via e-mail to over 600 librarians of various types of libraries using the Association of Polish Librarians mailing list. It was also shared on Facebook. In response to the survey, 256 responses were received, of which only 107 were complete. The research proves that Polish libraries are involved in citizen science to a limited extent. Only 25% of the surveyed librarians admitted that their institution is involved in projects in this field, and this involvement comes down to providing library resources and lending technical infrastructure. Only four people (3.6% of all respondents) stated that citizen science is a priority in their institutions (which means that the library promotes citizen science, launches independent projects, creates resources, and conducts workshops for scientists and volunteers). As many as 63% of librarians said their institutions are currently separate from citizen science. Polish librarians listed the most significant barriers hindering involvement in citizen science: resource shortages (human resources, financial resources and equipment) and a low level of knowledge about the essence of citizen science and the possibilities of incorporating its projects into library activities.
The number of collaborative initiatives between scientists and volunteers (i.e., citizen science) is increasing across many research fields. The promise of societal transformation together with scientific breakthroughs contributes to the current popularity of citizen science (CS) in the policy domain. We examined the transformative capacity of citizen science in particular learning through environmental CS as conservation tool. We reviewed the CS and social-learning literature and examined 14 conservation projects across Europe that involved collaborative CS. We also developed a template that can be used to explore learning arrangements (i.e., learning events and materials) in CS projects and to explain how the desired outcomes can be achieved through CS learning. We found that recent studies aiming to define CS for analytical purposes often fail to improve the conceptual clarity of CS; CS programs may have transformative potential, especially for the development of individual skills, but such transformation is not necessarily occurring at the organizational and institutional levels; empirical evidence on simple learning outcomes, but the assertion of transformative effects of CS learning is often based on assumptions rather than empirical observation; and it is unanimous that learning in CS is considered important, but in practice it often goes unreported or unevaluated. In conclusion, we point to the need for reliable and transparent measurement of transformative effects for democratization of knowledge production. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development of research questions in mixed methods studies. First, we discuss the ways that the goal of the study, the research objective(s), and the research purpose shape the formation of research questions. Second, we compare and contrast quantitative research questions and qualitative research questions. Third, we describe how to write mixed methods research questions, which we define as questions that embed quantitative and qualitative research questions. Finally, we provide a framework for linking research questions to mixed methods data analysis techniques. A major goal of our framework is to illustrate that the development of research questions and data analysis procedures in mixed method studies should occur logically and sequentially.
The purpose of this research is to assess the current state of citizen science projects and reveal the role of volunteers in the research process. This is achieved by performing a literature review and content analysis of three international and one state-owned citizen science platforms (Wikipedia, SciStarter, CitSci and Precipita) that contain more than 800 research projects. Projects have been analyzed according to four categories: the academic disciplines, the way the project is designed, the phases of the research in which volunteers participate, and the tasks they perform. The results show that projects in the arts, humanities, and social sciences disciplines are almost non-existent. In addition, in the field of natural and physical sciences, projects are fostered with a top-down approach and volunteers participate primarily in the data collection phase in order to obtain a large volume of data, thereby receiving more financing from the European Union.
The use of citizen science for scientific discovery relies on the acceptance of this method by the scientific community. Using the Web of Science and Scopus as the source of peer reviewed articles, an analysis of all published articles on "citizen science" confirmed its growth, and found that significant research on methodology and validation techniques preceded the rapid rise of the publications on research outcomes based on citizen science methods. Of considerable interest is the growing number of studies relying on the re-use of collected datasets from past citizen science research projects, which used data from either individual or multiple citizen science projects for new discoveries, such as for climate change research. The extent to which citizen science has been used in scientific discovery demonstrates its importance as a research approach. This broad analysis of peer reviewed papers on citizen science, that included not only citizen science projects, but the theory and methods developed to underpin the research, highlights the breadth and depth of the citizen science approach and encourages cross-fertilization between the different disciplines.
Under the name of Citizen Science, many innovative practices in which
volunteers partner with scientist to pose and answer real-world questions are
quickly growing worldwide. Citizen Science can furnish ready made solutions
with the active role of citizens. However, this framework is still far from
being well stablished to become a standard tool for Computational Social
Sciences research. We present our experience in bridging Computational Social
Sciences with Citizen Science philosophy, which in our case has taken the form
of what we call Pop-Up Experiments: Non-permanent, highly participatory
collective experiments which blend features developed by Big Data methodologies
and Behavioural Experiments protocols with ideals of Citizen Science. The main
issues to take into account whenever planning experiments of this type are
classified and discused grouped in three categories: public engagement, light
infrastructure and knowledge return to citizens. We explain the solutions
implemented providing practical examples grounded in our own experience in
urban contexts (Barcelona, Spain). We hope that this work serves as guideline
to groups willing to adopt and expand such \emph{in-vivo} practices and opens
the debate about the possibilities (but also the limitations) that the Citizen
Science framework can offer to study social phenomena.
The role of design, both expert and nonexpert, in the ongoing wave of social innovation toward sustainability.
In a changing world everyone designs: each individual person and each collective subject, from enterprises to institutions, from communities to cities and regions, must define and enhance a life project. Sometimes these projects generate unprecedented solutions; sometimes they converge on common goals and realize larger transformations. As Ezio Manzini describes in this book, we are witnessing a wave of social innovations as these changes unfold—an expansive open co-design process in which new solutions are suggested and new meanings are created.
Manzini distinguishes between diffuse design (performed by everybody) and expert design (performed by those who have been trained as designers) and describes how they interact. He maps what design experts can do to trigger and support meaningful social changes, focusing on emerging forms of collaboration. These range from community-supported agriculture in China to digital platforms for medical care in Canada; from interactive storytelling in India to collaborative housing in Milan. These cases illustrate how expert designers can support these collaborations—making their existence more probable, their practice easier, their diffusion and their convergence in larger projects more effective. Manzini draws the first comprehensive picture of design for social innovation: the most dynamic field of action for both expert and nonexpert designers in the coming decades.
Five different citizen science projects have been introduced in eleven secondary schools where class-groups collaboratively worked together. To assess homogeneously the learning performance, we propose a rubric model that includes scientific, communication, and ICT competencies jointly with participation and motivation attitudes. Results highlight that more than 80% of the students developed highest scientific competencies while 81% of them reached top levels regarding motivation and participation attitudes. Results support the idea that citizen science projects allow for a context-based learning and enable students to handle shared concerns related to their own neighborhood through a hands-on approach.
The objective of this work is to determine the state of the art of social innovation laboratories for the collaborative construction of knowledge from the perspective of open innovation. It employs the methodology of the systematic mapping of the literature using the Science Direct, Springer Open and Google Scholar academic databases. The most significant findings include a tendency for social innovation laboratories using different technologies to socialize knowledge and the use of collaboration tools for the collaborative construction of knowledge. Is has been found that the creation of citizen networks (open social networks, researcher networks or contributor networks) and interdisciplinary work groups is common. Experts in laboratories suggest participating in listening mode since they take into account the experience of those affected and non-experts. Therefore, social innovation labs are spaces that are open to proposals for designing a work plan involving a range of actors to prototype a proposal from the perspective of open innovation.
This paper sets out the development of a Design Research Canvas through engagements with data and decision support practitioners. This is in direct response to the lack of tools for practitioners in crossing the practice research divide. Designed, built and evaluated within the context of an Executive Education programme, version 1 of the canvas is demonstrated. Initial results depict positive utility and effectiveness in completing a Design Research project. In addition, the evaluation of version 1 guided the development of an improved version 2 of the canvas. Moreover, the canvas itself provides a useful aid for practitioners, researchers and teachers involved in Design Research. Furthermore, being itself an example of Design Research, this study highlights some key insights on the process, such as early stage evaluations.
This volume consists of a number of selected papers that were presented at the 9th International Conference on Knowledge, Information and Creativity Support Systems (KICSS 2014) in Limassol, Cyprus, after they were substantially revised and extended. The 27 regular papers and 19 short papers included in this proceedings cover all aspects of knowledge management, knowledge engineering, intelligent information systems, and creativity in an information technology context, including computational creativity and its cognitive and collaborative aspects.