Data Quality Practice in Citizen Science: Calibrating a New Kind of Instrument

Data quality has become an increasing concern as the popularity of citizen science has grown. An array of data quality mechanisms have been proposed, developed, and implemented in many citizen science projects. An essential... [ view full abstract ]

Data quality has become an increasing concern as the popularity of citizen science has grown. An array of data quality mechanisms have been proposed, developed, and implemented in many citizen science projects. An essential question for this new discipline is: “Can citizens and citizen science programs be trusted to provide useful data for scientific research?” In this symposium we develop a new perspective for considering citizen science as an innovative scientific instrument that extends the possibilities for measurement beyond the traditional approaches employed by scientists. The symposium combines talks about insights gained from specific Citizen Science projects with talks that provide analyses from literature and website reviews.

Themes: Digital Opportunities/Practices and Best Practices

Todd Suomela, Univ. Alberta - Citizen Science as a New Kind of Instrument
Andrea Wiggins, Univ. Maryland - Participation Tasks and Data Quality Mechanisms
Yurong He, Univ. Maryland - A New Framework and Literature Review for Data Quality Mechanisms
Karen Martin, Pepperdine University - Data Quality in Grunion Greeters: Lessons Learned about Training, Follow-Up, and Asking the Right Questions
Brian Sullivan, Cornell Univ. Lab of Ornithology - Data Quality Approaches in eBird
Hillary Burgess, Univ. Washington - Collaboration, Iteration and Adaptation: Marine Debris Module Development in COASST
Kate Starbird, Univ. Washington - Reflections on Tweak the Tweet, a Crisis Reporting Microsyntax and a Crowd-Powered Information Processing Effort
Stuart Lynn, Zooniverse.org - Assuring and Managing Data Quality in Zooniverse
HeeJun Kim, UNC Chapel Hill- Building Trust Mechanisms in Crowdsourcing Applications
Kristin Stepenuck, Univ. Wisconsin-Extension - Data Quality Approaches in Water Quality Volunteer Monitoring Programs
Ed Washburn, EPA Office of R&D – An EPA Scientist’s Perspective on Citizen Science and Data Quality
Julian Turner, Colorado State Univ., CoCoRaHS - "Who Changed My Data?" CoCoRaHS Data Quality Control and Provenance Challenges Inherent to a Fluid Data Set