The art and science of multi-scale citizen science support

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2011.03.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Citizen science and community-based monitoring programs are increasing in number and breadth, generating volumes of scientific data. Many programs are ill-equipped to effectively manage these data. We examined the art and science of multi-scale citizen science support, focusing on issues of integration and flexibility that arise for data management when programs span multiple spatial, temporal, and social scales across many domains. Our objectives were to: (1) briefly review existing citizen science approaches and data management needs; (2) propose a framework for multi-scale citizen science support; (3) develop a cyber-infrastructure to support citizen science program needs; and (4) describe lessons learned. We find that approaches differ in scope, scale, and activities and that the proposed framework situates programs while guiding cyber-infrastructure system development. We built a cyber-infrastructure support system for citizen science programs (www.citsci.org) and show that carefully designed systems can be adept enough to support programs at multiple spatial and temporal scales across many domains when built with a flexible architecture. The advantage of a flexible, yet controlled, cyber-infrastructure system lies in the ability of users with different levels of permission to easily customize the features themselves, while adhering to controlled vocabularies necessary for cross-discipline comparisons and meta-analyses. Program evaluation tied to this framework and integrated into cyber-infrastructure support systems will improve our ability to track effectiveness. We compare existing systems and discuss the importance of standards for interoperability and the challenges associated with system maintenance and long-term support. We conclude by offering a vision of the future of citizen science data management and cyber-infrastructure support.

Introduction

Citizen science and community-based monitoring programs are emerging as significant providers of ecological data. These programs measure and monitor streams, lakes, birds, fish, invasive species, biodiversity, climate change, air quality, water quality, macro-invertebrates, astronomy, and even earthquakes (Bonney et al., 2009b, Cochran et al., 2009, Newman et al., 2010, Silvertown, 2009a, Silvertown, 2009b). As the number and breath of these programs increase, so does the volume of ecological data they generate (Bonney et al. 2009b). Creating and maintaining online data management systems capable of supporting the varied nature of these data is difficult for most programs. Programs fortunate enough to have their own data management systems still face user interface challenges (Newman et al. 2010) and struggle when their needs grow beyond the specificity of their current data management system.

Program-specific systems are limited to a particular domain (e.g., streams) and may not incorporate data standards or controlled vocabularies necessary for efficient data sharing or system interoperability. The benefits of integrating data from one program with another are often overlooked. For example, meta-analyses to determine climate change effects or species distributions cannot easily be conducted if data standards are not used between all programs measuring similar species and/or attributes. Additionally, given the importance of social interaction for volunteers (Bell et al., 2008a, Bell et al., 2008b), systems focused solely on data entry and storage may overlook important features that facilitate communication, marketing, and social interaction among citizens, volunteer coordinators, and stakeholders (Newman et al. 2010) or that support data analysis and visualization.

Citizen science programs are created for many purposes. Examples include: long term monitoring; scientific research; community networking; social empowerment; science literacy improvement; environmental education; youth career development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; community service; and the preservation of traditional ecological knowledge. Citizen science program objectives are equally varied. Examples include: contributing quality data, helping scientists answer questions, informing local decisions, engaging in social networks, and/or offering opportunities to enjoy nature. Meeting these objectives requires data management systems with many capabilities. For example, effective systems must announce training events, offer educational materials, perform automated data quality checks, provide tools for metadata support, automate summary statistics, create reports, enable data uploads and downloads, offer tools for analysis and modeling, exchange data with other databases, and provide decision support capabilities. End users demand flexible systems capable of integrating data across domains and scales while also accommodating diverse needs. Bonney et al. (2009b) articulate these challenges clearly: “… as citizen science [programs] grow in scope, …innovative tools in database management, scientific analysis, and educational research [will be needed], … networking technologies and… database solutions [will be] imperative, [and] computationally efficient geospatial analysis and imaging techniques [will be needed] … to handle … massive amounts of monitoring data … collected across vast geographic scales.” Thus, we sought to: (1) briefly review existing citizen science approaches and data management needs; (2) propose a framework for multi-scale citizen science support; (3) develop a cyber-infrastructure designed to support citizen science program needs; and (4) describe the lessons we learned. We compare existing systems and discuss the importance of standards for interoperability and the challenges associated with system maintenance and long-term support. We conclude by offering a vision for the future of citizen science data management, informatics, and cyber-infrastructure support.

Section snippets

Existing approaches and data management needs

At the forefront, it is important to review various citizen-based approaches and summarize their respective data management needs. Unfortunately, terminology remains confusing (Table 1) and includes phrases such as Community-Based Monitoring or Citizen-Based Monitoring, Citizen Science, Decision Support Systems, Environmental Decision Support Systems, Environmental Collaborative Monitoring Networks, Volunteered Geographic Information, Participatory Geographic Information Systems, Participatory

A framework for multi-scale citizen science support

Given these various citizen science approaches and respective data management needs, we developed a framework to situate programs based on their scope, scale, and activities (Fig. 1) and improve the design, development, and effectiveness of cyber-infrastructure systems built to support them. The proposed framework includes different program aspects and acknowledges that each aspect has associated tensions and continuums (Fig. 1). It is important for citizen science programs to define these

Cyber-infrastructure for multi-scale citizen science support

We created a cyber-infrastructure for ecological data management (Graham et al. 2007) and used this system to develop a website designed specifically for multi-scale citizen science support (CitSci.org; www.citsci.org). The website uses an enterprise-level SQL Server 2008 relational database management system in conjunction with numerous open source libraries and tools, including: PHP, Java (Sun/Oracle), GeoTools, the Java Topology Suite (Vivid Solutions), Proj4 (US Department of the Interior

More features are required to support program activities and social interaction

We have learned much in developing the CitSci.org system. Although the current CitSci.org system allows program managers and approved project members to customize their online citizen science experience (e.g., managers can create their own data entry forms and project members can customize their own alerts and maps), more development needs to be done to support the full suite of citizen science program needs. For example, when creating their own project, managers must also be able to enter

Discussion

We developed the CitSci.org cyber-infrastructure system to begin to tackle the challenges associated with developing a system for multi-scale citizen science support. We devised a framework to help program coordinators situate their own program's scope, scale, and activities in the context of other programs. The framework helps cyber-infrastructure developers determine the breadth of scenarios systems may be confronted with and suggests a spectrum of use cases that systems may need to support.

Conclusions

We conclude by offering a vision for the future of citizen science data management, informatics, and cyber-infrastructure support (Fig. 3). We anticipate that there will be many citizen science programs in a given domain (e.g., Domain I; plants; Fig. 3) that are situated in different spatial, temporal, and social spaces. For example, the Soapstone Prairie Bio-Blitz was a community event that occurred over a short time scale (a weekend during spring 2009) on a local spatial scale. The Water

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant OCI-0636213. We benefitted greatly from the support and insight of Sarah Braun, director of the Citizen Science Center at Beaver Creek Reserve, and acknowledge the help of Cindy Hale (Great Lakes Worm Watch Program), Erica Saunders (City of Fort Collins Natural Areas Program), and each of our numerous volunteers and program coordinators from the 28 active citizen science programs using CitSci.org. We thank Kirstin

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