International citizen science: making the local global

Abstract

The Earthwatch Institute is an international non‐profit organization that works with scientists and scientific institutions to develop citizen‐science‐based research and environmental monitoring programs. Each year, Earthwatch supports close to 80 different projects in more than 30 countries and recruits over 3000 volunteers to aid scientists in collecting data. Participants recruited by Earthwatch seek to tap into their passion for learning about science by volunteering to act as assistants for authentic research projects.

Linking place-based citizen science with large-scale conservation research: A case study of bird-building collisions and the role of professional scientists

“…Scientists can seek out programs on an as-needed basis (e.g., when addressing a particular research question that requires additional data from multiple localities), or ideally, in advance of such specific needs, thus developing a collaborative network that can be drawn on as needed. In either case, professional scientists should maintain two-way communications with programs and regularly provide useful feedback (Bonter and Cooper, 2012;Chandler et al, 2012;Cooper et al, 2007). For example, with experience gained from working with citizen scientist-collected data and interacting with program staff, professional scientists can distribute fact sheets that outline best practices in a clear and concise format (e.g., Loss et al, 2014b) and develop reporting systems that increase ease of data management within programs and allow seamless merging of data across programs (see examples in Section 3.2).…”

“…Breeding Bird Survey data; Sauer et al, 2012). The place-based nature of programs that operate in individual localities (hereafter: ''local programs'') remains an integral component of conservation and ecology research, drawing public interest and participation (Chandler et al, 2012) and leading to solutions to local problems (MillerRushing et al, 2012). However, achieving the full potential of citizen science requires collaboration among programs and professional scientists to bridge local data with-large scale research objectives (Bonney et al, 2009a;Couvet et al, 2008;Newman et al, 2011Newman et al, , 2012.…”

“…Although the importance of linking data from local citizen science programs with large-scale research has been widely acknowledged (Bonney et al, 2009a,b;Chandler et al, 2012;Cooper et al, 2007;Newman et al, 2011Newman et al, , 2012Sullivan et al, 2014), there has been relatively little discussion of the specific steps that facilitate this bridging of scales. Our goal is to illustrate how a consideration of scales beyond the scope of local programs will enhance contributions to large-scale conservation research while also benefiting efforts to address local conservation policy and management issues.…”

Comunidades Pesqueiras, Etnoecologia, Ecologia Humana e Segurança Alimentar: uma revisão de conceitos, modelos e ensino

“…Citizen science has ongoing projects in different areas available in websites, such as www.citizenscience.org, www.citsci.org, www.dataone.org, www.publiclaboratory.org, www.scistarter.com, ww.uwex.edu/ces/csreesvolmon [78] , as well as the Earthwatch Institute [79] . However, most projects are concentrated on terrestrial ecosystems (see www.frontiersinecology.org, August 2012).…”

European Handbook of Crowdsourced Geographic Information

“…Recent years have seen a growing number of projects using the possibilities offered by web 2.0 technologies Miller-Rushing, Primack & Bonney 2012), where volunteers can upload, manage, and share their own observations of plants and animals, and make them available for scientific research. Opportunities for biodiversity monitoring and ecological research provided by this phenomenon, but also implications for project organisation and management, are extensively discussed in a book by Dickinson and Bonney (2012), and in numerous other publications (e.g., Connors, Lei & Kelly 2012;Chandler et al 2012;Cosquer, Raymond & Prevot-Julliard 2012;Sullivan et al 2014). Motivations of initiatives in this field range from furthering public interest in conservation issues and concerns (with data collection as a mere by-product), to systematic generation of such data for specific uses in scientific research, planning or public administration (e.g.…”