Abstract
Citizen science or community science (CS) programmes are engaging volunteers in specific stages of the scientific research, mostly data collection and processing. They are less likely to have an explicit objective to support and promote volunteers' learning. In response to that, “citizen inquiry” emphases citizens' learning and community education, by viewing CS as an opportunity to educate the general public in thinking and acting scientifically. In citizen inquiry, citizens can take part in all the stages of the scientific research, from setting up an inquiry of personal interest, to deciding on the methods of data collection, analysis, and reporting. To ensure data quality when non-professionals design their own or take part in existing investigations, we have designed a bespoke online technological solution, the nQuire platform (nquire.org.uk), with support from the Open University/BBC partnership. nQuire scaffolds the design of high quality scientific inquiries through an authoring functionality and a process of data quality review by experts. In this paper, we detail how nQuire can support data quality assurance and control. We present case studies of how data quality was managed in two projects: “Heatwaves: Are you coping?” and “Pollinator Watch.”
Highlights
Citizen science or Community science (CS) is a research paradigm in which members of the public or citizens, often referred to as volunteers or amateurs, take part in scientific activities initiated by scientists and/or community members depending on the community science (CS) form
We have argued that the participation of volunteers in authentic scientific activities is a great learning opportunity that can promote development of scientific thinking skills and community inquiry
Scientific thinking is a tool that can help with approaching and solving everyday problems. It is about how one looks at the world, questioning what others say, approaching problems in organized and creative ways, learning to analyze why things went wrong and being open to new ideas that can change the way we think and act (The Royal Society, 2020)
Summary
Citizen science or Community science (CS) is a research paradigm in which members of the public or citizens, often referred to as volunteers or amateurs, take part in scientific activities initiated by scientists and/or community members depending on the CS form. CS has been viewed as a distinct field of inquiry which can engage volunteers with “relevant, authentic, and constantly changing dimensions of primary research” (Jordan et al, 2015, p.211) It can support and extend research in any discipline including social, natural and physical sciences, such as helping scientists identify species (Herodotou et al, 2017). CS programmes designed with an explicit focus on citizens and their growth and development remain scarce; such projects could involve citizens in the problem identification and framing of sustainable solutions, aligning policy agendas with the interests of the public, contribute own socio-political understanding of a topic, and help generate solutions and behavior change (Sauermann et al, 2020). It still remains to design and assess CS projects that have explicit objectives to support citizens’ learning and agency, while produce quality datasets that can be used to inform research and policy
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