C*Sci 2023 and the new name of the (US) Citizen Science Association

At the end of May, the Citizen Science Association (CSA) celebrated its 10th year anniversary in its conference – C*Sci 2023, held at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, Arizona. The conference (22-26 May) provided the opportunity to meet face-to-face colleagues in the area of citizen science, which I haven’t had a chance to talk … Continue reading C*Sci 2023 and the new name of the (US) Citizen Science Association

Continue reading »

Extreme Citizen Science Analysis and Visualisation – final event

Today is the first day after the end of the European Research Council (ERC) funded “Extreme Citizen Science: Analysis and visualisation”. For me, it’s an important milestone. In July 2007, Jerome Lewis got in touch with me about the need to develop data collection and visualisation to protect and nurture forest communities. This effort evolved … Continue reading Extreme Citizen Science Analysis and Visualisation – final event

Continue reading »

Citizen Science & Post-Normal Science zones

The Post-Normal Science 5 symposium moved, like many other scientific meetings this year, to an online meeting. If you haven’t come across the term, it is worth looking into – post-normal science (PNS) is, for me, one of the foundations for how citizen science can be integrated into policy processes. PNS is a conceptual framework … Continue reading Citizen Science & Post-Normal Science zones

Continue reading »

Citizen Science & Post-Normal Science zones

The Post-Normal Science 5 symposium moved, like many other scientific meetings this year, to an online meeting. If you haven’t come across the term, it is worth looking into – post-normal science (PNS) is, for me, one of the foundations for how citizen science can be integrated into policy processes. PNS is a conceptual framework … Continue reading Citizen Science & Post-Normal Science zones

Continue reading »

The role of learning in citizen science and the impact of participation inequality

From August to December I was hosted at the Centre for Research and interdisciplinarity in Paris. This short term research fellowship had a focus on learning and citizen science. The recording below is from a seminar in November 2019, titled “the role of learning in citizen science and the impact of participation inequality”. The talk … Continue reading The role of learning in citizen science and the impact of participation inequality

Continue reading »

Platforms for citizen science

A CRI-Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle workshop: created by Anshu (CRI long term fellow) and Simon (MNHN), from a meeting at the Galaxy community in Freiburg. I joined the design process and it was structured so the museum and the CRI present the systems that are being developed, with a scope for a discussion about lessons … Continue reading Platforms for citizen science

Continue reading »

European Research & Innovation Days 2019

Between 24-26 September, the European Commission Directorate-General for Research & Innovation run an event in Brussels, titled “European Research and Innovation Days”. This was a large scale event, with about 3900 participants, which served several purposes. With Horizon 2020 approaching to its end and Horizon Europe starting in about a year an a half, it … Continue reading European Research & Innovation Days 2019

Continue reading »

New paper: The Value of Stakeholder Mapping to Enhance Co-Creation in Citizen Science Initiatives

A new paper, led by Artemis Skarlatidou, was just published in the journal “Citizen Science: Theory and Practice”, describing how stakeholder mapping can be used in co-created citizen science projects. The workshop was part of the COST Action on citizen science, and the NERC Engaging Environment project “Into the night” was one of the case … Continue reading New paper: The Value of Stakeholder Mapping to Enhance Co-Creation in Citizen Science Initiatives

Continue reading »

Citizen Science @ Computation Foundry, Swansea

The Computational Foundry at the Swansea University organised two days “Festival of Ideas” as part of the activities to celebrate its opening. The first day was organised by Ben Shneiderman and focused on aspects of AI, while the second day, curated by Jenny Preece, focused on citizen science. The summary here is from the second day, … Continue reading Citizen Science @ Computation Foundry, Swansea

Continue reading »

DITOs final event (2): Doing It Together beyond DITOs

This is the second part of the plenary element of the DITOs final event and again, I’m reblogging Alice Sheppard’s notes (and editing them lightly): The second part of the This is a continuation after the morning’s sessions. The session is based on a panel of other projects that have done work in Europe separately from … Continue reading DITOs final event (2): Doing It Together beyond DITOs

Continue reading »

Doing It Together Science (DITOs) final event talks (part 1)

This is a reblogging of the reporting from DITOs final event, which was blogged by Alice Sheppard (which I’ve edited, lightly): Introduction to the day Camille Pisani, the Director of RBINS praises numerous volunteers and collaborators who have worked together, and the way different activities have been aimed at reaching many different audiences. There have … Continue reading Doing It Together Science (DITOs) final event talks (part 1)

Continue reading »

Citizen Science 2019: Designing technology to maximize cultural diversity, uptake, and outcomes of citizen science

This blog post was written by Michelle Neil of ACSA with edits by me (yay! collaborative note taking!) (apologies for getting names wrong!)  The session was structured in the following way: first, each person presented their issue, and then they answer questions that were presented by other panel members. The questions that we managed to … Continue reading Citizen Science 2019: Designing technology to maximize cultural diversity, uptake, and outcomes of citizen science

Continue reading »

Opportunity: come and help us create the ExCiteS Social Enterprise!

The Extreme Citizen Science group, set up about 8 years ago, has developed two main technological infrastructures – Sapelli software to allow data collection by low-literacy participants, and GeoKey, a data management system for community mapping. We have also developed an engagement approach that allows for the co-production of the data collection process, and for … Continue reading Opportunity: come and help us create the ExCiteS Social Enterprise!

Continue reading »

10 years of Mapping for Change

November 24 marks 10 years since Louise Francs, Chris Church and myself set up Mapping for Change. It’s a proud moment when the social enterprise that was set out of a research project at UCL is now well established, and the work that it does is mentioned in the annual report of the Chief Medical … Continue reading 10 years of Mapping for Change

Continue reading »

New publication: Participatory citizen science

I’ve mentioned in the previous posts about the introduction and conclusions chapters in the book “Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy” and the chapter about citizen science in universities. The final chapter in the book that I would like to highlight is my chapter “participatory citizen science“. As Rick Bonney pointed to me, on the face … Continue reading New publication: Participatory citizen science

Continue reading »

Citizens Disrupt podcast on Extreme Citizen Science

Around July, Linda Doyle got in touch with me, with a request for an interview for a mini-series of podcasts on citizen science as part of the Science Disrupt podcasts. The Science Disrupt series got plenty of interesting episodes – a mini-series on Responsible Science, DIY Bio, Crowdfunding research, and many other topics. The specific … Continue reading Citizens Disrupt podcast on Extreme Citizen Science

Continue reading »

Lessons learned from Volunteers Interactions with Geographic Citizen Science – Afternoon session

The context of the workshop and the notes from the first part of the workshop is available here. The theme of the second part of the day was Interacting with geographical citizen science: lessons learned from urban environments Volunteer interactions with flood crowdsourcing platforms – Avi Baruch talk is based on a completed PhD on the aspects of volunteers … Continue reading Lessons learned from Volunteers Interactions with Geographic Citizen Science – Afternoon session

Continue reading »

Lessons learned from Volunteers Interactions with Geographic Citizen Science – Morning session

On the 27th April, UCL hosted a workshop on the “Lessons learned from Volunteers Interactions with Geographic Citizen Science“. The workshop description was as follows: “A decade ago, in 2007, Michael Goodchild defined volunteered geographic information (VGI) as ‘the widespread engagement of large numbers of private citizens, often with little in the way of formal … Continue reading Lessons learned from Volunteers Interactions with Geographic Citizen Science – Morning session

Continue reading »

OECD Open Science and Scientific Excellence Workshop – Paris

The OECD organised and hosted a Global Science Forum (GSF) and National Experts on Science and Technology Indicators (NESTI) Workshop on  “Reconciling Scientific Excellence and Open Science: What do we want out of science and how can we incentivise and monitor these outputs?” (9 April, 2018, OECD). In agreement with the OECD Secretariat, the information … Continue reading OECD Open Science and Scientific Excellence Workshop – Paris

Continue reading »

Representation of the people in science: Women in civic and citizen science – event summary

On the 19th March, as part of UCL activities to the that accompany the UCL Exhibition “Disruptors and Innovators: Journeys in gender equality at UCL”, we hosted a panel of talks on how to open up science and engineering to new audiences, especially the representation of women in science. The event was called “Representation of … Continue reading Representation of the people in science: Women in civic and citizen science – event summary

Continue reading »

Citizen Science Inquiry event and book launch at the Open University

Citizen Inquiry is a new book, edited by Christothea (Thea) Herodotou,‎ Mike Sharples,  and Eileen Scanlon – all are education technology experts at the Open University. To celebrate the book, the Institute of Education Technology organised a citizen science impact symposium.  These are my notes from the day. The day opened with Eileen Scanlon covered … Continue reading Citizen Science Inquiry event and book launch at the Open University

Continue reading »

Chapter in Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice – Participatory GIS and community-based citizen science for environmental justice action

The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice has been published in mid-September. This extensive book, of 670 pages is providing an extensive overview of scholarly research on environmental justice.  The book was edited by three experts in the area – Ryan Holifield from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Jayajit Chakraborty from the University of Texas at El Paso, and Gordon Walker … Continue reading Chapter in Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice – Participatory GIS and community-based citizen science for environmental justice action

Continue reading »

Changing departments – the pros and cons of being away from home discipline(s)

Last weekend, I updated my Linkedin page to indicate that I’ve now completed the move between departments at UCL – from the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geomatic Engineering to the Department of Geography. It’s not just me – the Extreme Citizen Science group will be now based at the Department of Geography. With this move, … Continue reading Changing departments – the pros and cons of being away from home discipline(s)

Continue reading »

PhD studentship in collaboration with the Ordnance Survey – identifying systematic biases in crowdsourced geographic information

Deadline 28th July 2017 UCL Department of Geography and the Ordnance Survey are inviting applications for a PhD studentship to explore the internal systematic biases in crowd-sourced geographic information datasets (also known as Volunteered Geographic Information – VGI). The studentship provides an exciting opportunity for a student to work with Ordnance Survey on understanding the … Continue reading PhD studentship in collaboration with the Ordnance Survey – identifying systematic biases in crowdsourced geographic information

Continue reading »

PhD studentship in Extreme Citizen Science – development of data collection tools with non-literate participants

Applications are invited for one PhD studentship as part of the European Research Council (ERC) funded project named ECSAnVis (Extreme Citizen Science: Analysis & Visualisation) aimed at a developer. Citizen Science is the participation of members of the public in a scientific project, from shaping the question, to collecting the data, analysing it and using … Continue reading PhD studentship in Extreme Citizen Science – development of data collection tools with non-literate participants

Continue reading »

Cambridge Conference 2017 – The Willing Volunteer

The Cambridge Conference is an event that is held every 4 years, organised  by the Ordnance Survey, and it is a meeting of many heads of National Mapping Agencies who come together to discuss shared interests and learn from each other. The history of the conference is available here. This year, I was asked to … Continue reading Cambridge Conference 2017 – The Willing Volunteer

Continue reading »

Citizen Science 2017 – workshops day and opening panel

The Citizen Science Association conference is held at the River Center in St Paul, Minnesota on 17th to 20th May. This post and the following ones are notes that were taken during the meeting in the sessions that I’ve attended. Wednesday was dedicated to workshops, and I joined the Citizen Science at College level workshop. Organised by Thomas … Continue reading Citizen Science 2017 – workshops day and opening panel

Continue reading »

Into the night – training day on citizen science slides

Last December, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) awarded funding to UCL Extreme Citizen Science group and Earthwatch as part of their investment in public engagement. The projects are all short – they start from January to March and included public engagement and training to early career researchers. “Into the Night” highlights the importance of light … Continue reading Into the night – training day on citizen science slides

Continue reading »

Podcast – discussion with Liz Killen and Alice Sheppard on citizen science

Several weeks ago, Liz Killen, who is studying for an MSc in Science Communication at Imperial College organised an interview with me and Alice Sheppard about aspects of citizen science, for the I, Science the science magazine of Imperial College. This is the second time ExCiteS is covered in the magazine, after a report in 2013 by … Continue reading Podcast – discussion with Liz Killen and Alice Sheppard on citizen science

Continue reading »

Crowdsourcing the Future?

About a month ago, on 7th December 2016, DR Kingsley Purdam (Manchester) organised a one day workshop on citizen science, and in particular on citizen science from a social science methodological perspective. The day organised with the support of the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). The purpose of the workshop/conference was to explore the … Continue reading Crowdsourcing the Future?

Continue reading »

UCL Synergies podcast – Congo Citizen Science

The “UCL Synergies podcasts” is series of interviews with researchers who are working on a shared problem from two disciplinary perspective. It is part of the activities to demonstrate how UCL addresses the grand challenges. The series itself is an excellent  demonstration of the issues that come up in interdisciplinary research and you can find … Continue reading UCL Synergies podcast – Congo Citizen Science

Continue reading »

Reading ‘Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction’ in place

At the beginning of the year, I received an email from Mary Ellen Hannibal, asking for a clarification of the ‘extreme citizen science’ concept. Later on, Mary Ellen provided me with an early copy of ‘Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction‘, and asked if I will be willing to recommend … Continue reading Reading ‘Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction’ in place

Continue reading »

Science Foo Camp 2016

Science Foo Camp (SciFoo) is an invitation based science unconference that is organised by O’Reilly media, Google, Nature, and Digital Science. Or put it another way, a weekend event (from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon), where 250 scientists, science communicators and journalists, technology people from area that relate to science, artists and ‘none of the … Continue reading Science Foo Camp 2016

Continue reading »

Esri Education User Conference talk: Citizen Science & Geographical Technologies: creativity, learning, and engagement

The slides below are from my keynote talk at the Esri Education User Conference 2016. The conference focused on creativity and its relevant to education and the utilisation of GIS (especially Esri software) at different levels of education. My talk explored the area of citizen science and extreme citizen science and the way geographical technologies … Continue reading Esri Education User Conference talk: Citizen Science & Geographical Technologies: creativity, learning, and engagement

Continue reading »

New paper: Digital engagement methods for earthquake and fire preparedness

At the beginning of the Challenging Risk project, the project team considered that before we go out and develop participatory tools to engage communities in earthquake and fire preparedness, we should check what is available. To achieve that, we have commissioned Enrica Verrucci to help us with the review, and later on other members of the … Continue reading New paper: Digital engagement methods for earthquake and fire preparedness

Continue reading »

Participatory [Citizen] Science

‘Citizen Science as Participatory Science‘ is one of the most popular posts that I have published here. The post is the core section of a chapter that was published in 2013 (the post itself was written in 2011). For the first European Citizen Science Association conference I was asked to give a keynote on the second … Continue reading Participatory [Citizen] Science

Continue reading »

#FuturePub – Citizen Science, Open Science & scientific publications

Thanks to an invitation from John Hammersley of OverLeaf I gave a talk at #FuturePub 7 event, which was dedicated to “New Developments in Scientific Collaboration Tech”. The evening was structured around 7 very short talks (about 5 minutes) so my slides are a very short introduction to citizen science (in this event, I would say that … Continue reading #FuturePub – Citizen Science, Open Science & scientific publications

Continue reading »

Algorithmic governance in environmental information (or how technophilia shape environmental democracy)

These are the slides from my talk at the Algorithmic Governance workshop (for which there are lengthy notes in the previous post). The workshop explored the many ethical, legal and conceptual issues with the transition to Big Data and algorithm based decision-making. My contribution to the discussion is based on previous thoughts on environmental information … Continue reading Algorithmic governance in environmental information (or how technophilia shape environmental democracy)

Continue reading »

Alan Irwin talk on Citizen Science and Scientific Citizenship (JRC, October 2015)

The EU Joint Research Centre in Ispra has recently released the recording of a talk by Alan Irwin at the Joint Research Centre as part of the STS “Contro  Corrente” series of seminars from 15 October 2015, with Jerome Ravetz and Silvio Funtowicz (famous for their post-normal science) as discussants. The talk, titled Citizen Science and Scientific Citizenship: same words, … Continue reading Alan Irwin talk on Citizen Science and Scientific Citizenship (JRC, October 2015)

Continue reading »

Extreme Citizen Science in Esri ArcNews

The winter edition of Esri ArcNews (which according to Mike Gould of Esri, is printed in as many copies as Forbes) includes an article on the activities of the Extreme Citizen Science group in supporting indigenous groups in mapping. The article highlights the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) aspects of the work, and mentioning many members of … Continue reading Extreme Citizen Science in Esri ArcNews

Continue reading »
1 2 3