Conceptual Frameworks for Building Online Citizen Science Projects

Abstract

In recent years, citizen science has grown in popularity due to a number of reasons, including the emphasis on informal learning and creativity potential associated with these initiatives. Citizen science projects address research questions from various domains, ranging from Ecology to Astronomy.  Due to the advancement of communication technologies, which makes outreach and engagement of wider communities easier, scientists are keen to turn their own research into citizen science projects. However, the development, deployment and management of these projects remains challenging. One of the most important challenges is building the project itself. There is no single tool or framework, which guides the step-by-step development of the project, since every project has specific characteristics, such as geographical constraints or volunteers' mode of participation. Therefore, in this article, we present a series of conceptual frameworks for categorisation, decision and deployment, which guide a citizen science project creator in every step of creating a new project starting from the research question to project deployment.  The frameworks are designed with consideration to the properties of already existing citizen science projects and could be easily extended to include other dimensions, which are not currently perceived.