Citizen science and open science would benefit from closer interaction
Even though their primary goals and motivations differ, both citizen science and open science have the potential to challenge and change the predominant ways in which research is done today. That potential is considerably enhanced when the two come together.
While citizen science is focused on opening up some aspects of specific research projects and on engaging the public to contribute, open science is focused on opening up research as it proceeds through the entire research cycle, and the possibility to engage with the public is a usually welcome but rarely central aspect.
Now imagine research being done in a way that allows anyone — expert or amateur — to contribute to, learn from or otherwise engage with it at any stage.
In this contribution - which is to be given from https://github.com/Daniel-Mietchen/events/blob/master/ECSA-2018-Citizen-science-and-Open-science.md - I would like to outline some ways in which citizen science would benefit from wider adoption of open science practices, and vice versa, drawing on examples from multiple fields of inquiry.
This file hosts a submission to the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) conference on 3-5 June 2018 in Geneva. It was submitted by the 21 January 2018 deadline under the "Does citizen science change science?" theme and the sub-theme "Is Citizen Science just science by other means, or can it transform what counts as evidence?"
On March 28, I was notified that this session had been accepted, albeit in a format (as a poster) that differed from what I had proposed (a talk). I had until April 4 to confirm, which I did. I also enquired about how to join the "digital poster session" and was told that there were no slots left.
All posters have been scheduled to be on display from 8:30 until 14:00 on Monday June 4, with the poster session from 13:00-14:00 to discuss with the poster authors.