It was 2007.  My research group had just received an NSF grant to begin incorporating citizen science into our national invasive species program.  Although we knew that involving the public was necessary to get the data we needed for our research, we had no idea how to begin.  We had not even heard of “citizen science” prior to writing our grant but saw the term in a literature review and thought it was appropriate for what we were trying to accomplish.  “What were we trying to accomplish?”, you might ask.  Well, we had spent the past seven years compiling datasets from professional invasive species researchers.  We hoped to get a better idea of the current distribution of these species and use modeling techniques to predict their future spread.  We quickly realized that utilizing only professional datasets would not be enough (not even close!) to getting the data necessary to answer our research questions.  We needed help…the kind of help that only a team of volunteers could provide.  So, we threw together our ideas, we got the grant, we had the money, now what?

In 2007, although not that long ago, researchers new to the field of citizen science (or, more broadly, public participation in scientific research) did not have resources readily available to initiate a new program.  Through online searches, I found some resources scattered here and there, but pulling these resources together took a lot of time.  One of my primary go-to resources, published in 2006, was Broadening Participation in Biological Monitoring: Handbook for Scientists and Managers.  One of the report’s authors, Heidi Ballard, was giving a workshop at the Ecological Society of America that year in San Jose.  In addition, I also saw that Rebecca Jordan, a professor at Rutgers University, was giving a talk on an invasive species citizen science program.  I spoke to both individuals while there (although I doubt they remember ) and I got enough feedback to get me started.  One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to contact Jennifer Shirk at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who was working on developing a citizen science toolkit.  The toolkit was being designed for professionals like me with no idea how to get started, and a workshop was being hosted by Cornell later that year to get feedback on its development.  One problem:  the toolkit would not be available until after I needed it.  So, back to the process of web searches, literature reviews, emails, hitting up presentations scattered across multiple conferences, and phone chats.  It worked, but again, it was a time consuming process – a very time consuming process.

Fast forward to today.  At the Public Participation in Scientific Research Conference held in Portland, OR, I found the one-stop-shopping venue I had only dreamed of back in 2007.  The authors of all those relevant papers I had read were there.  The programs that I had heard about were all represented.  The colleagues that had mentored me over the past five years were there.  Individuals I’ve always wanted to hear speak gave talks.  If you are an up and coming researcher in this field, I would analogize this event to conducting literature reviews using the internet versus conducting those same reviews with multiple trips to the library, digging through filing cards labeled with the Dewey Decimal System.  The evolution of the field and the networks that have established in the past five years have been remarkable to see.  And, the discussion of the development of a professional society during the workshop suggests that these efforts will continue to evolve well into the future.  So now, I sit here thinking……where was that Delorean when I needed it?

How might a milestone moment in one discipline resonate across many disciplines where citizen science (and other forms of public participation in scientific research) is practiced?

This year, at the 2011 meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Austin, TX, I noted a subtle but critical shift in the way citizen science was being discussed….
(NOTE: In this post, bolded links below will take you to ESA conference abstracts, unbolded links directly to talks, posters, or project websites.)

Ecology

This shift really hit home for me on the very last day of the conference, when I hefted my carry-on luggage along to catch one last talk: The role of citizen monitors in urban ecology and conservation. I was expecting a descriptive presentation on the nice work that can be done by volunteers, but was instead blown away by Kevin Matteson’s critical review of the scientific analyses possible (and not possible) based on different monitoring strategies employed by two butterfly monitoring initiatives.

Here’s what was so stunning. This talk was critical… and yet it was not bogged down by historic all-or-nothing criticisms of citizen science as biased and/or unreliable. Rather than simply discussing why volunteer data should or shouldn’t be used, Matteson (University of Illinois at Chicago) deeply examined the methods employed by each of the two different groups to share how each data set could effectively be used, in light of its strengths and limitations.

Based on this year’s set of ESA talks, the need for citizen science data has (finally?) trumped its challenges, with researchers now confronting challenges head-on in order to maximize the usefulness of unique data sets. Here’s another case: researchers from Clemson found that – according to one historic data set – hummingbirds tended to “migrate” primarily on the weekends (suspicious… ). And yet, with sophisticated analyses, this team was able to extract from these data useful insights about the effects of climate change on bird phenology. The use of citizen science data was similarly handled (and called for) by other presenters in this session entitled Climate Change: Ranges and Phenology (an area of research that often needs the observation-intensive data sets that citizen science initiatives can produce).

Technology

Other critical conversations addressed how to best support the opportunities and advantages that citizen science offers. One of the meetings’ centerpiece sessions about citizen science was a series of talks on Mobile Devices for Data Collection. The talks on their own showcased some amazing technologies (check out the Android app for NEON’s Project BudBurst, built in partnership with the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing). But the larger success of this session was bringing together, in one place, folks who are working on similar technologies, and who share goals of enhancing and increasing participation. How to accomplish this? Lee Marsh (USA National Phenology Network) summed up on The needs of the many by highlighting interoperability as key, so that the growing suite of stunning interfaces like Project Noah can help avoid unintentionally segmenting audiences (and, therefore, observations).

Further expanding the technology frontiers for citizen science was PhD student Megan Chesser (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), who set up the challenge:  Pattern recognition, humans vs. computers (poster). The winner? In the task of assessing whether two photos of marbled salamanders were of the same individual, volunteer human observers were on par with image recognition software, at least for determining false negatives. And for false positives, observer skill increased significantly with experience to a point of proficiency. Instead of recommending that computers could be trusted to do the job, Megan concluded that working with volunteers would yield valid data AND the added bonus of outreach and education. Thinking about future tech expansions, she mused about using CAPTCHA as a platform for citizen science image identification… just imagine!

New Researchers

Other up-and-coming citizen science researchers were showcased at ESA: Tiffany Carey shared linkages between Pollen and Public Health in Detroit, Michigan (poster overview with link to PDF). Anna Johnson described monitoring and management work done through Volunteer urban environmental stewardship of native plants on public lands in Pittsburgh (poster here). And Nina Roundtree presented analyses of the Beta-diversity of human skin bacteria studied with the citizen science approach (aka, “belly button biodiversity“).

Reframing Citizen Science?

This final project points to differences in thinking about participants-as-subjects and participants-as-researchers in citizen science. For certain, the term “citizen science” is complicated, and has been questioned in other venues… but for the first time this year I heard a move at ESA towards Redefining Citizen Science, as proposed by Corrie Knapp (University of Alaska, Fairbanks). Her talk paralleled another (delivered by yours truly, but reflecting insights of many colleagues), using the umbrella term of Public Participation in Scientific Research (talk on SlideShare). Each talk suggested that social as well as ecological dimensions might be considered to help yield broader outcomes sought by a given project. Case studies illustrating different ways of Engaging the Public in Scientific Research for Conservation (talk on SlideShare) were offered in a summary of a workshop in April, 2011, that deeply explored the breadth of approaches to citizen science.

Breadth, as much as Depth

It’s impossible to do justice to the full complement of citizen science conversations throughout the 2011 ESA meeting. The idea popped up in unexpected places (such as a talk by George Middendorf on Fostering Local and Regional Interactions with Communities in Need), and was a thread in many hallway and coffee shop conversations (with Ecological Research as Education Network – EREN coordinator Laurel Anderson; with  Madhu and Kaberi Katti about citizen science in urban settings; with sociologists Laura Lindenfeld and Linda Silka from Maine’s Sustainability Solutions Initiative; and many others). I hope that what shines through here is the breadth of the conversation.

Because – beyond the ‘just-another-messy-dataset’ acceptance of citizen science – the really compelling shift in the conversation is exactly about its breadth. It’s the fact that ESA, a science-based organization, is hosting conversations on citizen science that address (and MUST address, as this field grows) everything from population analyses to technology innovations to social science and community engagement.

Next…

Plans are in the works to propose a two-day pre-conference workshop on citizen science prior to ESA next year in Portland, Oregon. What kinds of talks do you think would be important to move this conversation forward?