Abstract

The use of citizen science for scientific discovery relies on the acceptance of this method by the scientific community. Using the Web of Science and Scopus as the source of peer reviewed articles, an analysis of all published articles on “citizen science” confirmed its growth, and found that significant research on methodology and validation techniques preceded the rapid rise of the publications on research outcomes based on citizen science methods. Of considerable interest is the growing number of studies relying on the re-use of collected datasets from past citizen science research projects, which used data from either individual or multiple citizen science projects for new discoveries, such as for climate change research. The extent to which citizen science has been used in scientific discovery demonstrates its importance as a research approach. This broad analysis of peer reviewed papers on citizen science, that included not only citizen science projects, but the theory and methods developed to underpin the research, highlights the breadth and depth of the citizen science approach and encourages cross-fertilization between the different disciplines.

Highlights

  • ObjectivesThe aim of this work was to highlight the broad landscape of citizen science by monitoring the use of the term “citizen science” in peer-reviewed published papers listed within the Web of Science and Scopus databases

  • Accepted: November 9, 2015Published: November 23, 2015

  • The research work that used and combined datasets available from previous citizen science projects indicated that, in at least some areas, scientists considered the datasets to be of sufficient quality for future research

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Summary

Objectives

The aim of this work was to highlight the broad landscape of citizen science by monitoring the use of the term “citizen science” in peer-reviewed published papers listed within the Web of Science and Scopus databases

Methods
Results
Conclusion
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