EU BON citizen science gateway Veljo Runnel University of Tartu Natural History Museum.

EU BON citizen science gateway

Veljo RunnelUniversity of Tartu Natural History Museum

Citizen science for biodiversity research

Citizen Science - “volunteer collection of biodiversity and environmental data which contributes to expanding our knowledge of the natural environment, including biological monitoring and the collection of interpretation of environmental observations”

UK Environmental Observation Framework recommendation, Understanding Citizen Science and Environmental Monitoring This is not understandable. Please rephrase. Reference?

Citizen science for biodiversity research

Documenting and sharing biodiversity occurrences easier than ever before: •Digital recording – photo, video, soundrecording.•Automatically recorded metadata – coordinates, time, owner of media.•Online networks, portals

Are researchers ready for citizen scientists participation?

Survey „Assessing Citizen Science involvement in biological research“EUBON (2014)

In your research, have you used any help or data input from volunteers?

Would you use volunteer help/data input in the future? (All respondents)



Field N Actual engagement of

volunteers

Willingness to engage

volunteers in future

Agriculture 2 50% 50 %

Biosystematics 16 56% 63 %

Ecology 76 59% 90 %

Environment protection 25 76% 92 %

Molecular biology 6 17% 83 %

Other 25 56% 84 %



Type of institution N Actual engagement of

volunteers

Willingness to engage

volunteers in future

Academic 119 55% 84 %

NGO 16 94% 100 %

Government agency 14 71% 86 %



Reasons for engaging citizen scientists Reasons for NOT engaging citizen scientists

Need to increase amount and variety of data (48% of respondents)

There are enough resources to do the research with professionals only (13%)

Educational aspect is important for 17% Engaging volunteers takes too big effort (12%),

Sometimes the volunteer data is the only data source for research

There are no capable volunteers (10%)

Research topic is too specific or work too demanding to engage citizen scientists

Concern about data quality


Researchers rated the citizen science data quality: high – 15 %, satisfactory – 78 %, low - 7 %.


According1,2 million observations – 0,5 million of them research grade (and available in GBIF

portal)

What data is available from citizen science sources?

GBIF as important international infrastructure for publishing biodiversity data.

eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)


GBIF

eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)


Norwegian Species Observation Service (Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre, University of Oslo)


GBIF

Norwegian Species Observation Service (Norwegian Biodiversity

Information Centre, University of Oslo)



iNaturalist (supported by California Academy of Sciences)GBIF


iNaturalist (supported by California Academy of Sciences)

ca 1 200 000 occurrences in iNaturalist

ca 500 000 from them „research grade“ and published to GBIF

What data is available from citizen science sources?iNaturalist (supported by California Academy of Sciences)

Observation data published through GBIF

Citizen science data mobilisation - challenges

Citizen science data mobilisation - challengesObservation data published through GBIF

Preserved specimen data published through GBIF


Not all taxa are popular among citizen scientists

House Sparrow Passer domesticus …


GBIF

Challenges

Not all taxa are popular among citizen scientists

… vs House Fly Musca domesticaGBIF

Challenges

• Language barriers • Data duplication in different portals and databases• Access unavailable data• …

Citizen science data mobilisation


-mobilise CS data which is still unavailable or incompatible with international biodiversity research community standards-integrate citizen science into policy making-facilitate the adopting of existing data standards for data management-provide „meeting place“ for researchers, citizen scientists and policymakers

Citizen science data mobilisation


MS152Prototype (alpha version) of citizen science gateway established at EU BON portalDelivery month: 24

MS153Workshop on alpha version of citizen science gatewayDelivery month: 26

MS154Workshop on final version of citizen sciencegatewayDelivery month: 44

Deliverable 1.2Summary report and strategy recommendations for EU citizen science gateway for biodiversity dataDelivery month: 44

EU BON citizen science gateway -module for managing citizen science data on the PlutoF platform

EU BON citizen science gateway -registry of online citizen science platforms, tools and guides


Further developments:

•Best practise case analysis •Guides for effective citizen science project managementl repository] •Integration with EU BON data portal•Collaboration with major citizen science organisations as ECSA (European Citizen Science Association)

Thank you!

EU BON citizen science gateway Veljo Runnel University of Tartu Natural History Museum.

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