2022 journal article
Citizen Science as an Ecosystem of Engagement: Implications for Learning and Broadening Participation
BioScience.
author keywords: public science; conservation; volunteer management; crowdsourcing; education
open access via www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (repository)
UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
13. Climate Action
(Web of Science)
14. Life Below Water
(Web of Science)
15. Life on Land
(Web of Science)
Source: ORCID
Added: June 23, 2022
Abstract The bulk of research on citizen science participants is project centric, based on an assumption that volunteers experience a single project. Contrary to this assumption, survey responses (n = 3894) and digital trace data (n = 3649) from volunteers, who collectively engaged in 1126 unique projects, revealed that multiproject participation was the norm. Only 23% of volunteers were singletons (who participated in only one project). The remaining multiproject participants were split evenly between discipline specialists (39%) and discipline spanners (38% joined projects with different disciplinary topics) and unevenly between mode specialists (52%) and mode spanners (25% participated in online and offline projects). Public engagement was narrow: The multiproject participants were eight times more likely to be White and five times more likely to hold advanced degrees than the general population. We propose a volunteer-centric framework that explores how the dynamic accumulation of experiences in a project ecosystem can support broad learning objectives and inclusive citizen science.