- Increases project visibility, functionality, and accessibility. 
- Enables projects that can only be done online.
- Statistical tools and computational techniques to compel and analyze complex datasets. 

New York University

Bonney, R., Shirk, J. L., Phillips, T. B., Wiggins, A., Ballard, H. L., Miller-Rushing, A. J., & Parrish, J. K. (2014). Next steps for citizen science. Science, 343(6178), 1436–1437. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1251554

Next Steps for Citizen Science

Technology gives rise to citizen science

- Concerns: unprofessional volunteers cannot collect data of equal quality to those collected by experts. 
- Solution: to develop and improve open-source data management technologies, data analysis tools, professional development opportunities, and project evaluation services

Scientific impact- concerns about data quality 

Investments in infrastructure and partnerships: 
-> create more local projects and leverage local and traditional knowledge sources -> more deliberate design specific to solve the community-driven questions

Social and environmental impact

- Problem: many redundant and duplicate projects that collect similar data in similar locations
- Solution 1: to adopt, adapt, or collaborate with already-proven projects and to fit them into their topics of interest
- Solution 2: gather truly essential information in ways that are currently going unrealized


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