Learning from the First Citizen Science Association Virtual Conference

The Citizen Science Association (CSA) is a member-driven organization that connects people with interest in community/citizen science (c*science) from a wide range of backgrounds, disciplines, and experiences. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the bi-annual CSA conference pivoted away from an in-person format to a virtual format. CitSciVirtual: Local, Global, Connected occurred throughout May 2021 and brought together more than 700 attendees from 36 countries. The conference prioritized interactive experiences for attendees, including 16 collaborative poster sessions featuring 240 virtual posters, 55 workshops to learn and practice new skills, and 7 social events. This paper summarizes the impacts of the rapid transition to a virtual format on the conference goals, planning and decision-making processes, practices, outcomes, and attendee experiences. Both the strengths and weaknesses of this first virtual conference are featured to outline opportunities for growth for the CSA, c*science at large, and science conferences in general. © 2023 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Tourists, selfies and coastal monitoring during COVID-19

Citizen science in coastal ecosystems often involve (eco-)tourists that actively monitor reefs, species and pollution. Data collected by tourists, passively, was used to gain insight into landings of the largest fish, the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), in Pangandaran Bay, Indonesia. Monitoring of illegal fishing was halted due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and lockdowns. With two million, mainly Indonesian, tourists visiting Pangandaran Bay in 2020 (30% less than in 2019) enough tourists were present to record landings of whale sharks. Monitoring social media revealed reports of 10 whale shark landings between August 2020 and August 2022. Seven were in July-August of immatures 6-7 m in length. The information passively provided by tourists since COVID-19 have given insights into the biology of whale sharks, landing risks and how communities interact with sharks. Feeding back this information to tourists is challenging, yet vital, to cement a sense of belonging, purpose and attachment to their holiday location.

Seismic Observations in Bucharest Area with a Raspberry Shake Citizen Science Network

Technological advancements and the appearance of low-cost Raspberry Shake seismographs have enabled the development of citizen science seismic networks in many areas worldwide. These networks can help reduce seismic risk and increase citizens' understanding of seismology and earthquakes. Such a network exists in Bucharest, one of the cities in Europe that are struck and affected by strong Vrancea earthquakes. The paper aims to show that data from such networks can be used in both outreach programs and research studies. There are presented, for the first time, seismic observations collected over two years beginning in the summer of 2020 in the Bucharest area based on the low-cost seismometers from the citizen science Raspberry Shake network. A significant number of earthquakes from the Vrancea region were recorded by the Bucharest Raspberry Shake Seismic Network (BRSSN). Some of them were felt by Bucharest inhabitants. The National Institute for Earth Physics in Magurele (Romania) organizes educational events that promote geosciences among the population and presents the tools at its disposal for a better understanding of earthquakes and their effects, contributing this way to the development of the concept of citizen science. Citizens are the first witnesses to seismic events and the citizen science seismic network provides them with the first direct information about the event via web apps available for any internet-connected device. Their involvement as non-professional participants helps in providing data for scientists via questionnaire forms to improve scientific research for earthquake assessment. Since citizen seismometers are installed in urban areas, an analysis of the ambient seismic noise (ASN) was performed in addition to the analysis of recorded seismic events. The analysis indicates that the level of seismic noise is mainly controlled by human activities. At the same time, for one citizen seismometer installed in a school in Bucharest, the results show patterns of noise variations due to students' activity.

Accessibility of Participation in a Pollinator-Focused Community Science Project

Ecological research, education, and community engagement were interrupted globally in the spring and summer of 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To allow for continued data collection and to provide opportunities for people to interact with nature, we developed a community science project focusing on pollinator visitation to gardens and lawns. To evaluate the accessibility of this project to volunteers, we conducted 28 semi-structured interviews with people who participated in the project training. Interviewees experienced a number of barriers to participation, the most common of which were difficulty with the data collection procedure (n = 22), challenges using technology (n = 11), and lack of access to technology (n = 9). However, components of the online training and data collection procedure helped overcome some of these barriers. Strategies such as using a hybrid training format, simplifying the use of technology during training, and incorporating active learning into online workshops could increase participation in community science projects, both in the context of the pandemic and moving forward. © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Process evaluation of a Citizen Science approach in a Worksite Health Promotion Program to improve health in an occupational setting

Active involvement of workers in the implementation of Worksite Health Promotion Programs (WHP) is important to increase the support, compliance and potential effect of the program. However, most programs in an occupational setting lack the continuing involvement of workers like a citizen science approach. This study aims to evaluate the process of a Citizen Science approach in which the target group of workers have been actively involved in the design of the WHP. The study took place in a terminal and a construction company. Mixed methods using questionnaires and interviews were applied to evaluate the process of the Citizen Science approach. The Nielsen and Randall framework was used to cover process indicators on the intervention, context and mental models. The majority of employees felt actively involved, resulting in overall positive experience of the intervention and approach. Suggestions regarding the communication and tailoring were addressed to improve reach, satisfaction and readiness for change. The elements culture and events appeared to have a hindering effect on the facilitation and implementation of the intended intervention, such as a conservative attitude towards lifestyle change and the covid-19 outbreak. Overall, the Citizen Science approach and the resulting intervention was well received by the employees. Besides the room for improvement of reach, communication and readiness to change, the company's culture and events appeared to play a vital role in the appeal, satisfaction and participation.Copyright © Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC.

Privacy Personas for IoT-Based Health Research: A Privacy Calculus Approach.

The reliance on data donation from citizens as a driver for research, known as citizen science, has accelerated during the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic. An important enabler of this is Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as mobile phones and wearable devices, that allow continuous data collection and convenient sharing. However, potentially sensitive health data raises privacy and security concerns for citizens, which research institutions and industries must consider. In e-commerce or social network studies of citizen science, a privacy calculus related to user perceptions is commonly developed, capturing the information disclosure intent of the participants. In this study, we develop a privacy calculus model adapted for IoT-based health research using citizen science for user engagement and data collection. Based on an online survey with 85 participants, we make use of the privacy calculus to analyse the respondents' perceptions. The emerging privacy personas are clustered and compared with previous research, resulting in three distinct personas which can be used by designers and technologists who are responsible for developing suitable forms of data collection. These are the 1) Citizen Science Optimist, the 2) Selective Data Donor, and the 3) Health Data Controller. Together with our privacy calculus for citizen science based digital health research, the three privacy personas are the main contributions of this study.

The impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns on wildlife-vehicle collisions in the UK.

Wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) cause millions of vertebrate mortalities globally, threatening population viability and influencing wildlife behaviour and survival. Traffic volume and speed can influence wildlife mortality on roads, but roadkill risk is species specific and depends on ecological traits. The COVID-19 pandemic, and associated UK-wide lockdowns, offered a unique opportunity to investigate how reducing traffic volume alters WVC. These periods of reduced human mobility have been coined the 'anthropause'. We used the anthropause to identify which ecological traits may render species vulnerable to WVC. We did this by comparing the relative change in WVC of species with differing traits before and during the anthropause. We used Generalised Additive Model predictions to assess which of the 19 species most frequently observed as WVC in the UK exhibited changes in road mortality during two lockdown periods, March-May 2020 and December 2020-March 2021, relative to the same time periods in previous years (2014-2019). Compositional data analysis was used to identify ecological traits associated with changes in the relative number of observations during lockdown periods compared to previous years. WVC were, across all species, 80% lower during the anthropause than predicted. Compositional data analysis revealed proportionally fewer reports of nocturnal mammals, urban visitors, mammals with greater brain mass and birds with a longer flight initiation distance. Species that have several of these traits, and correspondingly significantly lower than predicted WVC during lockdowns, included badgers Meles meles, foxes Vulpes vulpes, and pheasants, Phasianus colchicus; we posit they stand to benefit most from reduced traffic, and, of the species studied here, have highest mortality under 'normal' traffic levels. This study identifies traits and species that may have experienced a temporary reprieve during the anthropause, and highlights the impacts of traffic-induced mortality on species numbers and ultimately on trait frequency in a road-dominated landscape. By taking advantage of reductions in traffic offered by the anthropause, we can understand how vehicles influence wildlife survival and behaviour and may be exerting a selective force for certain species and traits.

Structural Challenges in Deployment of an Open-Source Diagnostic by Independent Researchers During a Public Health Emergency

Open-source diagnostic products have the potential to address some of the major challenges of diagnostic access revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as it stands, the current approval model in the US is poorly suited for such tests. In March 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a small group of independent scientists with members located in Illinois, New York, and Georgia collaborated on developing an open-source, patent-free COVID-19 diagnostic test. Within a few short months, we had developed a reliable test and published the protocol online with the hope that this simple, yet sensitive test would be adopted for widespread testing in laboratories, schools, and workplaces. However, we encountered several unexpected barriers to deployment of the test. This essay describes our experience and proposes a novel solution to reduce the barriers that limit meaningful contributions by independent researchers to addressing healthcare challenges in the United States. © 2022 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.

Process evaluation of the Dutch COVID-19 QR code app: an example of citizen science

Background: The Dutch Ministry of Health developed and implemented the CoronaCheck app. With the app, citizens can show proof of "non-infectivity" when traveling within the EU and to gain access to e.g. restaurants or events. The study was carried out among citizens, companies and civil society organisations. The results of were used by the Ministry for optimization. Method(s): 42 interviews and 353 questionnaires were conducted in the general population, visitors to events, managers of test lanes and employees of society organisations. Field observations were performed at 3 events. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically coded. Descriptive analyses were used for the questionnaires. Finding(s): 49% of the citizens see the added value and necessity of CoronaCheck yet 47% fear that CoronaCheck will lead to a divide in society. As the vaccination rate increases, doubts increase among respondents about the necessity of the app. The travelling distance to a testing location and the digital accessibility were bottlenecks. Companies had difficulties to find the right information. It turned out to be difficult to avoid fraud with QR codes. The interviews with civil society organisations showed that there is too little attention for low digital literate people. Conclusion(s): Citizens, companies and civil society organisations all find the concept CoronaCheck relevant. However, there are some points of interest: testing should be easily accessible, information about the control procedure and a telephone helpline should be available for organisers and the procedure should also be easily available in analogue form.

Crowd-Resourcing in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Resource Transformation Perspective

Driven by recent calls for more research that examines forms of crowdsourcing used to address social challenges, in this article, we contribute to the broader literature on open innovation and crowdsourcing by investigating how crowdsourcing platforms enable the transformation of crowd-based resources. We have focused on initiatives with broader social purposes, rather than those that are for-profit and single firm-driven, where the resulting resources are usually solely controlled by a specific organization. By analyzing 19 crowd-based initiatives with a similar context—responding to the coronavirus disease pandemic—we studied a variety of initiatives and identified three distinct types of crowdsourcing platforms that enable resource transformation: resource pooling;resource cocreation;and resource enabling beyond the platform boundaries. We depict how access to and control of resources vary across initiatives. We have framed our contribution as crowd-resourcing, providing a reference model for the design of platforms based on the type of involvement and expected degree of resource transformation. IEEE

Who, where, when: Observer behavior influences spatial and temporal patterns of iNaturalist participation

Understanding the observation process is key to effective use of opportunistic biodiversity data from low-structure citizen science. We investigated how observer characteristics, including activity level (enthusiastic, moderate, or short-term) and primary location (resident or visitor), influenced spatial and taxonomic patterns of iNaturalist participation in the Hawaiian Islands from 2008 to 2021. We found that visitors represented nearly two-thirds of all observers and 96% of the enthusiastic group. Sampling bias toward developed areas, sites near roads or trails, and areas with fewer protections was relatively stronger for residents, most of whom were short-term participants. However, observations by enthusiastic residents had the greatest taxonomic diversity. Participation grew exponentially through 2019, then decreased in spring 2020. Though resident participation was comparatively steady during COVID-19 travel restrictions, it did not compensate for the decline in visitor activity. Once restrictions ended in 2021, participation recovered quickly among enthusiastic visitors but continued to be lower than expected for residents. Our results indicate that the majority and diversity of sampling relies on a small group of highly active observers, most of whom are unlikely to live in the region. Fostering sustained, local participation could improve the consistency and quality of iNaturalist observations and thus their utility in biodiversity conservation. © 2023 The Authors

A Citizen Science Approach for Analyzing Social Media With Crowdsourcing

Social media have the potential to provide timely information about emergency situations and sudden events. However, finding relevant information among the millions of posts being added every day can be difficult, and in current approaches developing an automatic data analysis project requires time and technical skills. This work presents a new approach for the analysis of social media posts, based on configurable automatic classification combined with Citizen Science methodologies. The process is facilitated by a set of flexible, automatic and open-source data processing tools called the Citizen Science Solution Kit. The kit provides a comprehensive set of tools that can be used and personalized in different situations, particularly during natural emergencies, starting from images and text contained in the posts. The tools can be employed by citizen scientists for filtering, classifying, and geolocating the content with a human-in-the-loop approach to support the data analyst, including feedback and suggestions on how to configure the automated tools, and techniques to gather inputs from citizens. Using flooding scenario as a guiding example, this paper illustrates the structure and functioning of the different tools proposed to support citizens scientists in their projects, and a methodological approach to their use. The process is then validated by discussing three case studies based on the Albania earthquake of 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Thailand floods of 2021. The results suggest that a flexible approach to tools composition and configuration can support a timely setup of an analysis project by citizen scientists, especially in case of emergencies in unexpected locations. © 2013 IEEE.

Citizen Science and Soundscape Perception during COVID restriction in the UK

Winchester Science Centre in Southern England hosts a significant number of informative exhibits pertaining to principles of acoustics;one such example being on the subject of euphony, which seeks to collect evidence from the visiting public by asking questions about their sound environment. In a period of time between the first and third COVID lockdowns, visitors to this exhibit were asked what sounds they noticed more or less of, and what their favourite and least favourite sounds were during this period. The results are shared with two-fold benefit: to assist the public perception of noise and euphony, and to capture the aural response of the public to the 2020 COVID restrictions. This paper explores these results, but also the potential for conducting research from a larger cohort of visitors using a citizen science approach to deliver big data sets, to further explore the perception of sound in the environment with regard to its context. © 2022 Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering. All rights reserved.

Interventions for improving indoor and outdoor air quality in and around schools

Students spend nearly one third of their typical day in the school environment, where they may be exposed to harmful air pollutants. A consolidated knowledge base of interventions to reduce this exposure is required for making informed decisions on their implementation and wider uptake. We attempt to fill this knowledge gap by synthesising the existing scientific literature on different school-based air pollution exposure interventions, their efficiency, suitability, and limitations. We assessed technological (air purifiers, HVAC - Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning etc.), behavioural, physical barriers, structural, school-commute and policy and regulatory interventions. Studies suggest that the removal efficiency of air purifiers for PM2.5, PM10, PM1 and BC can be up to 57 %, 34 %, 70 % and 58 %, respectively, depending on the air purification technology compared with control levels in classroom. The HVAC system combined with high efficiency filters has BC, PM10 and PM2.5 removal efficiency up to 97 %, 34 % and 30 %, respectively. Citizen science campaigns are effective in reducing the indoor air pollutants' exposure up to 94 %. The concentration of PM10, NO2, O3, BC and PNC can be reduced by up to 60 %, 59 %, 16 %, 63 % and 77 %, respectively as compared to control conditions, by installing green infrastructure (GI) as a physical barrier. School commute interventions can reduce NO2 concentration by up to 23 %. The in-cabin concentration reduction of up to 77 % for PM2.5, 43 % for PNC, 89 % for BC, 74 % for PM10 and 75 % for NO2, along with 94 % reduction in tailpipe emission of total particles, can be achieved using clean fuels and retrofits. No stand-alone method is found as the absolute solution for controlling pollutants exposure, their combined application can be effective in most of the scenarios. More research is needed on assessing combined interventions, and their operational synchronisation for getting the optimum results.Copyright © 2022 The Authors

Navigating biosafety concerns within COVID-19 do-it-yourself (DIY) science: an ethnographic and interview study.

Non-establishment or do-it-yourself (DIY) science involves individuals who may not have formal training conducting experiments outside of institutional settings. While prior scholarship has examined the motivations and values of those involved in the subset of DIY science known as "DIY biology," little research has addressed how these individuals navigate ethical issues in practice. The present study therefore aimed to understand how DIY biologists identify, approach, and resolve one particular ethical issue-biosafety-in their work. We conducted a digital ethnography of Just One Giant Lab (JOGL), the primary hub for DIY biology during the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequently conducted interviews with individuals involved with JOGL. We found that JOGL was the first global DIY biology initiative to create a Biosafety Advisory Board and develop formal biosafety guidelines that applied to different groups in multiple locations. There was disagreement, however, regarding whether the Board should have an advisory role or provide mandatory oversight. We found that JOGL practiced ethical gatekeeping of projects that fell outside the limits defined by the Board. Our findings show that the DIY biology community recognized biosafety issues and tried to build infrastructure to facilitate the safe conduct of research. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41292-023-00301-2.

Meet the Medicines-A Crowdsourced Approach to Collecting and Communicating Information about Essential Medicines Online.

The World Health Organization (WHO) maintains a list of medicines and medical devices, essential medicines, that should be available to everyone, to form a functioning healthcare system. Yet, many of these medicines remain out of reach for people around the world. One significant barrier to improving the accessibility of essential medicines is a paucity of information about both the extent and causes of this problem. E$$ENTIAL MEDICINE$ (E$$) is a citizen science project designed to investigate this deficit of information by recruiting members of the public to find, validate, compile and share information on essential medicines through an open, online database. Herein, we report an approach to crowdsourcing both the collection of information on the accessibility of essential medicines and the subsequent communication of these findings to diverse audiences. The Meet the Medicines initiative encourages members of the public to share information from the E$$ database, in a short video format appropriate for social media. This communication details the design and implementation of our crowdsourced approach and strategies for recruiting and supporting participants. We discuss data on participant engagement, consider the benefits and challenges of this approach and suggest ways to promote crowdsourcing practices for social and scientific good.

Merging citizen science with epidemiology: design of a prospective feasibility study of health events and air pollution in Cologne, Germany.

BACKGROUND: Citizen science as an approach to merge society and science is not a new paradigm. Yet it is not common in public health, epidemiology, or medical sciences. SMARAGD (Sensors for Measuring Aerosols and ReActive Gases to Deduce health effects) assesses air pollution at participants' homes or workplaces in Cologne, Germany, as feasibility study with a citizen science approach. Personal exposure to air pollutants is difficult to study, because the distribution of pollutants is heterogeneous, especially in urban areas. Targeted data collection allows to establish connections between air pollutant concentration and the health of the study population. Air pollution is among the most urgent health risks worldwide. Yet links of individualized pollution levels and respiratory infections remain to be validated, which also applies for the feasibility of the citizen science approach for epidemiological studies. METHODS: We co-designed a prospective feasibility study with two groups of volunteers from Cologne, Germany. These citizen scientists and researchers determined that low-cost air-quality sensors (hereafter low-cost sensors) were to be mounted at participants' homes/workplaces to acquire stationary data. The advantage of deploying low-cost sensors is the achievable physical proximity to the participants providing health data. Recruitment started in March 2021 and is currently ongoing (as of 09/22). Sensor units specifically developed for this study using commercially available electronic sensor components will measure particulate matter and trace gases such as ozone, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. Health data are collected using the eResearch system "Prospective Management and Monitoring-App" (PIA). Due to the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we also focus on COVID-19 as respiratory infection. DISCUSSION: Citizen science offers many benefits for science in general but also for epidemiological studies. It provides scientific information to society, enables scientific thinking in critical discourses, can counter anti-scientific ideologies, and takes into account the interests of society. However, it poses many challenges, as it requires extensive resources from researchers and society and can raise concerns regarding data protection and methodological challenges such as selection bias.

Monitoring Green Sea Turtles in the San Gabriel River of Southern California.

Effective conservation of endangered species relies on the characterization of habitat use and tracking of long-term population trends, which can be especially challenging for marine species that migrate long distances and utilize a diversity of habitats throughout their lives. Since 2012, citizen science volunteers at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, have been monitoring an urban population of East Pacific green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) that resides near the mouth of the San Gabriel River (SGR) in Southern California, USA, in order to gain insights about how the population uses this area. Here, we collate and analyze nine years of citizen science data, including observed sightings collected across 10 observation stations. Our results confirm that green sea turtles are frequently present around warm water effluent from power plants, similar to research results reported for other locations in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Importantly, observational data also show notable green sea turtle activity around the outfalls for a small wetland habitat bordering the SGR, highlighting the importance of wetland ecosystems as a key habitat and foraging area for this threatened population. Finally, our results showcase the benefits of using citizen science to monitor sea turtle populations in easily accessible nearshore habitats.

Lessons Learned from Natural Disasters around Digital Health Technologies and Delivering Quality Healthcare.

As climate change drives increased intensity, duration and severity of weather-related events that can lead to natural disasters and mass casualties, innovative approaches are needed to develop climate-resilient healthcare systems that can deliver safe, quality healthcare under non-optimal conditions, especially in remote or underserved areas. Digital health technologies are touted as a potential contributor to healthcare climate change adaptation and mitigation, through improved access to healthcare, reduced inefficiencies, reduced costs, and increased portability of patient information. Under normal operating conditions, these systems are employed to deliver personalised healthcare and better patient and consumer involvement in their health and well-being. During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital health technologies were rapidly implemented on a mass scale in many settings to deliver healthcare in compliance with public health interventions, including lockdowns. However, the resilience and effectiveness of digital health technologies in the face of the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters remain to be determined. In this review, using the mixed-methods review methodology, we seek to map what is known about digital health resilience in the context of natural disasters using case studies to demonstrate what works and what does not and to propose future directions to build climate-resilient digital health interventions.

Implementing and Evaluating Community Health Worker-Led Cardiovascular Disease Risk Screening Intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa Communities: A Participatory Implementation Research Protocol.

The increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) poses a considerable threat to public health. Community-driven CVD risk screening, referral and follow-up of those at high CVDs risk is essential to supporting early identification, treatment and secondary prevention of cardiovascular events such as stroke and myocardial infarction. This protocol describes a multi-country study that aims to implement and evaluate a community health worker (CHW)-led CVD risk screening programme to enhance referral linkages within the local primary care systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), using a participatory implementation science approach. The study builds upon a prior community-driven multicentre study conducted by the Collaboration for Evidence-based Health Care and Public Health in Africa (CEBHA+). This is a participatory implementation research. The study will leverage on the CVD risk citizen science pilot studies conducted in the four selected CEBHA+ project countries (viz. Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi, and South Africa). Through planned engagements with communities and health system stakeholders, CHWs and lay health worker volunteers will be recruited and trained to screen and identify persons that are at high risk of CVD, provide referral services, and follow-up at designated community health clinics. In each country, we will use a multi-stage random sampling to select and then screen 1000 study participants aged 35-70 years from two communities (one rural and one urban). Screening will be done using a simple validated non-laboratory-based CVD risk assessment mobile application. The RE-AIM model will be used in evaluating the project implementation outcomes, including reach, fidelity, adoption and perceived effectiveness. Developing the capacities of CHWs and lay health worker volunteers in SSA to support population-based, non-invasive population-based CVD risk prevention has the potential to impact on early identification, treatment and secondary prevention of CVDs in often under-resourced communities. Using a participatory research approach to implementing mobile phone-based CHW-led CVD risk screening, referral and follow-up in SSA will provide the evidence needed to determine the effectiveness of CVD risk screening and the potential for scaling up in the wider region.