Citizen Scientists Supplement Work of Cornell Researchers

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit

doi:10.1126/science.308.5727.1402

Cited by 85 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 0 publications

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“…The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO; Williams 2001) and the Audubon Society"s Christmas Bird Count (Root 1988) have both successfully partnered citizen scientists with professional scientists for more than a century, producing research results that could not otherwise have been achieved. More recently, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has recruited birdwatchers as citizen scientists for published studies of the distribution of bird populations in North America; these studies would have been impossible without participation of citizen scientists (Bonney 2008, Bhattacharjee 2005.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Galaxy Zoo: Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers

Raddick

Bracey²,

Lintott

et al. 2010

Astronomy Education Review

391

372

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The Galaxy Zoo citizen science website invites anyone with an Internet connection to participate in research by classifying galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. As of April 2009, more than 200,000 volunteers had made more than 100 million galaxy classifications. In this paper, we present results of a pilot study into the motivations and demographics of Galaxy Zoo volunteers, and define a technique to determine motivations from free responses that can be used in larger multiple-choice surveys with similar populations. Our categories form the basis for a future survey, with the goal of determining the prevalence of each motivation. KEYWORDS Public Outreach Galaxies CosmologyResearch into teaching/learning Web-based learning

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Galaxy Zoo: Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers

Raddick

Bracey²,

Lintott

et al. 2010

Astronomy Education Review

391

372

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“…In addition to weather, bird, and water monitoring, citizens also monitor a multitude of types of environmental systems and organisms, including air (O'Rourke and Macey 2003), amphibians (Shirose et al 1997), biodiversity (Cosquer et al 2012), mammals (Moyer-Horner et al 2012), invasive species (Gallo and Waitt 2011), forestry (Ballard et al 2008), marine environments (Evans et al 2000), and bees (Ashcroft et al 2012). These efforts have produced invaluable data that have been used by scientists to track changes in populations and environmental trends over time (e.g., Ticheler et al 1998, Boylen et al 2004, Bhattacharjee 2005, Greenwood 2007, Dickinson et al 2012) and by managers to modify practices to eliminate pollution (Da Silva Pinho 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual- and community-level impacts of volunteer environmental monitoring: a synthesis of peer-reviewed literature

Stepenuck¹,

Green²

2015

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Citizens have long contributed to scientific research about the environment through volunteer environmental monitoring programs. Their participation has also resulted in outcomes for themselves, their communities, and the environment. This research synthesizes 35 peer-reviewed journal articles that reported such outcomes through 2012. This collection of articles was derived from a pool of 436 peer-reviewed journal articles about participatory environmental monitoring. Reported outcomes for participants and communities ranged from increasing personal knowledge and community awareness to changing attitudes and behaviors, building social capital, and ultimately, influencing change in natural resource management and policies. Mixed results were reported in regard to citizen participation in natural resource decision-making processes and in terms of participant knowledge gain. Future research recommendations that address identified knowledge gaps include the following: (1) assessing knowledge beyond the basic content of the subject of monitoring to better address the value of volunteer environmental monitoring as a public participation tool; (2) conducting independent research across programs to enable null or negative outcome reporting, understand commonalities of outcomes across programs, and make linkages between outcomes and program characteristics; (3) carrying out rigorous research that includes data collection and statistical analysis focused on the effectiveness of citizen participation in decision making; (4) assessing the time component of outcome achievement to inform the volunteer monitoring community; and (5) conducting additional research to identify changes in attitudes and behaviors, particularly geared toward minimizing losses in biodiversity and impacts of climate change.

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“…Around the same time, the American researcher and educator Rick Bonney used the term 'citizen science' to refer to public participation in scientific research (Rosner, 2013). An influential figure in citizen science, Bonney is based at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York where scientists have been engaging members of the public in ornithology research since the 1950s (Bhattacharjee, 2005). The Lab's founder, Arthur Allen, asked members of the public attending his weekly public seminars to report sightings of different bird species so that he could collect relative abundance data.…”

Section: A Short Historical Accountmentioning

confidence: 99%