A new report by SEI for the UK government explores what makes citizens collect and share their data.
Citizen science, where volunteers and scientists work together to answer scientific questions, can be invaluable for tracking ecosystem or climatic change. But as the role of citizen science grows, it is essential to understand more about the citizen scientists themselves.
In 2015, the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) funded the citizen science team at SEI York to explore this question in the context of environmental citizen science projects, with a particular focus on their motivations for and barriers to submitting gathered data. Their report has just been published.
The project undertook two surveys. One was embedded in a nationwide survey of a regular stratified sample of the UK population (Omnibus), while a dedicated survey using the online tool SurveyMonkey was distributed through the network of the OPAL citizen science project and through social media. This was complemented with a literature review.
Some of the main findings were:
“I was particularly interested in what we found out about the limited group of people who take part in citizen science,” says Senior Research Associate Sarah West, who led the SEI team. “Citizen science doesn’t just help scientists, it can also be an opportunity to learn, to get exercise, to meet new people. As project designers, we really should try to be as inclusive as possible.”
For more work on motivations in citizen science conducted by the SEI team, see the report for the UK Environmental Observation Framework. The team is currently working on a paper that will explore these topics in more detail.
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