Hoping for optimality or designing for inclusion: Persistence, learning, and the social network of citizen science.

ABSTRACT: The explosive growth in citizen science combined with a recalcitrance on the part of mainstream science to fully embrace this data collection technique demands a rigorous examination of the factors influencing data quality and project efficacy. Patterns of contributor effort and task performance have been well reviewed in online projects; however, studies of hands-on citizen science are lacking. We used a single hands-on, out-of-doors project-the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST)-to quantitatively explore the relationships among participant effort, task performance, and social connectedness as a function of the demographic characteristics and interests of participants, placing these results in the context of a meta-analysis of 54 citizen science projects. Although online

SUBMITTER: Parrish JK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6369789 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature