Citizen science projects engage non-science professionals in the scientific process, potentially empowering them to shape local environmental management, policy, and research. Hence, citizen participation in science can increase scientific democracy. However, citizen science programs often lack resources and funding. Therefore, online platforms like CitSci.org aim to support projects by providing them with a place to store data, tools for data analyses, and other resources. Despite initial use of these resources, some projects discontinue actively uploading data. Better understanding how citizen science advocates and experts can facilitate the sustainability of their projects is important. We seek to use data and project information uploaded on the CitSci.org platform to identify patterns of use and discontinued use. Drawing on CitSci.org metadata and anonymous surveys (Lickert, closed, and open response items), we compare the perceptions and activity of project leaders and citizen science volunteers related to their projects. We hypothesize that those projects in which leaders and volunteers have similar perceptions regarding training, implementation, evaluation, and communication are more sustainable (continuous use for 2 years). We test our hypotheses using mixed quantitative (t-tests, Chi square, and ANOVA analyses) and qualitative (content analysis) methods.
Results/Conclusions
Preliminary analyses of CitSci.org project metadata (n = 583) demonstrates that 171 of 583 were active since the start of 2016. Of these 171 projects, 42% focused on abiotic measurements while 51% focused on biotic measurements; 7% studied both abiotic and biotic aspects of ecosystems. An analysis of the organizations that coordinated the projects indicates that 23% of the 171 projects were started by nonprofits and 27% by universities. Other organizations made up <10% of projects active since 2016. These preliminary findings indicate that active projects tend to focus more on biotic subjects and are started by either nonprofits or universities. Survey results will confirm and elaborate on these findings. The results of this study are important because platforms such as CitSci.org increase access to science, potentially increasing scientific literacy of non-professional scientists. Improving platforms can help citizen scientists better inform management, policy, and research. Therefore, research scientists and project managers need to better understand the perceptions and needs of citizen scientists to improve resources and participation. Platform designers also need to better understand factors associated with successful project activity on their platforms to develop user experiences that encourage such success.