Awareness and Learning in Participatory Noise Sensing

Abstract

The development of ICT infrastructures has facilitated the emergence of new paradigms for looking at society and the environment over the last few years. Participatory environmental sensing, i.e. directly involving citizens in environmental monitoring, is one example, which is hoped to encourage learning and enhance awareness of environmental issues. In this paper, an analysis of the behaviour of individuals involved in noise sensing is presented. Citizens have been involved in noise measuring activities through the WideNoise smartphone application. This application has been designed to record both objective (noise samples) and subjective (opinions, feelings) data. The application has been open to be used freely by anyone and has been widely employed worldwide. In addition, several test cases have been organised in European countries. Based on the information submitted by users, an analysis of emerging awareness and learning is performed. The data show that changes in the way the environment is perceived after repeated usage of the application do appear. Specifically, users learn how to recognise different noise levels they are exposed to. Additionally, the subjective data collected indicate an increased user involvement in time and a categorisation effect between pleasant and less pleasant environments.

The SENSEable Pisa Project: Citizen‐Participation in Monitoring Acoustic Climate of Mediterranean City Centers

“…Simultaneously, the Project sought to involve citizens in the process of monitoring, control, data dissemination, and awareness‐raising. For this purpose, acoustic data have been presented in a simplified form, suitable to be shared on social networks, as in the WideNoiseProject (http://www.widetag.com/widenoise) .…”

Noise mapping based on participative measurements

“…NoiseTube contributed mainly to two research projects: the Cart_ASUR project⁹ (2012-2016) and the I-SCOPE ("Interoperable Smart City services through an Open Platform for urban Ecosystems") project¹⁰ 2012-2015). Similar features are proposed by the WideNoise¹¹ application (renamed as WideNoisePlus), available for Android and iPhone [53][54][55][56], that enables to measure noise levels and to send them to a server for mapping the measurements. Additionally, WideNoise offers users to post measurements on facebook or twitter to raise awareness.…”

Does Coimbra Need a 3d Cadastre? Prototyping a Crowdsourcing App As a First Step to Finding Out

“…In general, potential approaches include gamification (Murphy, 2015, Cicali et al, 2011, with (Brown and Kyttä, 2014) listing engagement via schools, incentivising participants with various monetary or other rewards , personal contact, snowballing, involving a respected institution such as a university (noting that these methods are also well established for participation in postal surveys). Research by (Becker et al, 2013) trialled methods including flyers, banners on the sides of mobile vehicles and direct engagement with communities having an interest in the topic, concluding that where a dedicated recruitment campaign is in action participation in enhanced (e.g. via Facebook (Sîrbu et al, 2015)).…”