Stakeholders and main roles in CS projects
First, we need to understand that a a lot of interested parts could benefit from citizen science projects in many ways.
Stakeholders in citizen science
Stakeholders who need reliable information on citizen science projects are diverse:
- Participants (volunteers)
- Academic and research organisations
- Government agencies and departments
- Civil society organisations, informal groups and community members
- Formal learning institutions
- Businesses or industries
- ...
When looking for volunteers to participate in certain citizen science project, it could be useful to look at the matrix, where main stakeholder groups are defined. (LIBER Citizen Science Working Group, 2021).
Stakeholders matrix. Figure adapted from LIBER Citizen Science Working Group. (2021).
Stakeholder preferences may vary. For example, a certain level of
interoperability is required for governmental structures as well as
academic and research institutions. However, in the case of
community-driven citizen science projects, the stakeholders are
participants or informal groups for whom interoperability is not a
priority, but who need the data to be presented in a user-friendly
format (Vohland et al., 2021).
What roles of participants can be defined in the CS project?
Lorke et al (2019) identified three main audiences for CS projects, which can be defined in the following way:
- Participants / volunteers - people who take part in citizen science projects and contribute to the project with different levels of involvement (data collection, classification, defining research questions, etc.) This group can include the general public, students, schoolchildren etc.;
- Facilitators / mediators - people who train or educate participants / volunteers how to contribute citizen science project, or support groups of participants within the project and after it. They also communicate about the project for the participants and stakeholders. Facilitators support researchers too. Librarians as facilitators/mediators could represent the ‘face’ of the project to the participants and play an intermediary role between the participants and the project design team (researchers). Facilitaros might be scientists, teachers, nature guides, museum educators, etc.;
- Project designers / project initiators - people who initiate and design citizen science projects. This role can be taken by researchers, scientists, engagement professionals, project coordinators, funders, NGOs, or interested citizens.
It is recognized that the individual may occupy more than one of these roles in any CS project, and may move between roles as a project progresses or their involvement evolves. Librarians can take any of these roles and act as citizen scientists collecting data, facilitators when communicating and supporting researchers in citizen science projects, or initiate citizen science projects and act as project designers/initiators.
More action is needed to change the
libraries’ role in society to be seen as a supportive unit for their university and the citizens at large (Kaseorg et al., 2022). Main drivers and barriers fr the librarians to participate in Citizen Science projects are discussed in the next chapter "Drivers and barriers for librarians in CS".
References
Kaseorg, S., Neerut, L., Lembinen, L.& Arust, E. (2022). Drivers and barriers of citizen engagement in open science and the role of university libraries in the Baltics. https://zenodo.org/record/6997820#.Y9VoS3bP1D8.
LIBER Citizen Science Working Group. (2021). Citizen Science Skilling for Library Staff, Researchers, and the Public. In J. Stilund Hansen, T. Kaarsted, & S. Worthington (Eds.), Series: Citizen Science for Research Libraries — A Guide (V1 ed., pp. 1–37). LIBER Citizen Science Working Group. https://doi.org/10.25815/hf0m-2a57.
Lorke, J., Golumbic, Y.N., Ramjan, C., and Atias, O., (2019): Training needs and recommendations for Citizen Science participants, facilitators and designers. COST Action 15212 report. https://nhm.openrepository.com/handle/10141/622589.Shirk, J. L., Ballard, H. L., Wilderman, C. C., Phillips, T., Wiggins, A., Jordan, R., McCallie, E., Minarchek, M., Lewenstein, B. V, Krasny, M. E., & Bonney, R. (2012). Public Participation in Scientific Research: a Framework for Deliberate Design. Ecology and Society, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04705-170229.
Tweddle, J. C., Robinson, L. D., Pocock, M. J. O., & Roy, H. E. (2012). Guide to citizen science: developing, implementing, and evaluating citizen science to study biodiversity and the environment in the UK. https://www.ceh.ac.uk/sites/default/files/citizenscienceguide.pdf.
Vohland, K., Land-Zandstra, A., Ceccaroni, L., Lemmens, R., Perelló, J., Ponti, M., Samson, R., & Wagenknecht, K. (Eds.). (2021). The Science of Citizen Science: Vol. VII (1st ed.). Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58278-4.