Building Citizen Science: A Natural History Badge Ecosystem

Jon Rosewell, iSpot, The Open University Jeff Holmes, EOL, Harvard University

Building Citizen Science

“Our knowledge of the living world is so incomplete, that we are at risk of losing a great

deal of it before it is even discovered.”E.O. Wilson

Building Citizen Science

Building Citizen Science

Building Citizen Science

Building Citizen Science

Building Citizen Science

…with Open Badges Infrastructure

Badges need redesign for use across all projects

Issues!

• How to design a coherent badge system to cover varying:– Skills– Biological group– Geographical region– Level– Issuer

Skills

• Identification skills

• Data contributor

• Science skills

• Eco-tourism, environmental policies

• Content curation

Biological groups

Geographical regions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ecozones.svg

Branding

Badges need to show the identity of the issuer

Composite badges

Issuer

SkillRegion

Biological group

Level

Phase 1

1. iSpot (& iSpot SA)• Implement OBI for existing badge design• Drupal & PHP

2. Encyclopedia of Life• Implement curator badge in OBI• Ruby on Rails

3. India Biodiversity Portal• Design badges, implement in OBI• Java (Jetty & Grails)

Phase 2

1. iNaturalist

2. Mushroom Observer

3. INBio

4. Atlas of Living Australia

All to participate in badge design, but delay implementation until lead project have blazed trail

Timeline

• April-June Initial design & prototyping

• July Technical workshop

• Aug-Oct Implementation on lead sitesDesign on Phase 2 sites

• Nov Plenary meeting

• Dec-March Full implementation

Building Citizen Science: A Natural History Badge Ecosystem

• Skills– identification– data contributor– curation

• Strong geographic focus

• Possible badges for ‘first observer’

INBio / Cyberhives

• Earn points for contributions:– Postings in forums– Participation in training sessions– Uploading and sharing images– Survey contribution– Uploading and sharing documents– Participation in webinars with experts– Field trips to wild areas– Final presentation of research project

• Tariff: 1 = 10pts, 10 = 20pts, 30 = 30pts

India Biodiversity Portal

• Badges:– contribution to observations – curation of species pages – peer assessment on competence in ecology

and environmental policy

“We believe the Open Badges program for India will truly empower learners and provide opportunities and livelihoods. We think there is an unmet need for naturalists and the badges program can fill this need very nicely.”

Collection managerCitizen science userVolunteerData provider