Extreme Citizen Science Techniques And Tools In the Cloud

Projektbeschreibung

Fortgeschrittene Technologien für die Bürgerwissenschaft

In den vergangenen zehn Jahren hat die Gruppe Extreme Citizen Science eine Methode erstellt, mit der Beteiligte mit geringen Kenntnissen in die gemeinsame Produktion wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse einbezogen werden können, was wiederum einheimischen Gemeinschaften und ihrer Umwelt zugute kommt. Diese Methodik umfasst den Einsatz technischer Instrumente wie Sapelli Collector, Sapelli Designer und Sapelli Viewer, die sich im globalen Süden als äußerst erfolgreich erwiesen haben. Das Team vom ERC-finanzierten Projekt ECSTATIC erkennt die Vorteile der Einbeziehung größerer Gemeinschaften an und verfolgt das Ziel, einen skalierten, rationalisierten Nachfolger für eine solche Datenerfassungs- und visualisierungstechnologie zu schaffen. Dieses neue Instrumentarium wird die Nutzung erleichtern, einen einfacheren Weg zu künftigen Unterstützungsdiensten bieten und die Zusammenarbeit mit anderen Organisationen fördern.

Ziel

Over the past decade, the Extreme Citizen Science group has developed a methodology to engage low literate participants in the co-production of scientific knowledge, in an inclusive and ethical methodology that ensures community involvement and shared benefits. The methodology involved a set of technical tools, that are named Sapelli Collector, Sapelli Viewer, Sapelli Designer, and GeoKey. Prototypes of these tools were developed through the ERC-AdG-2015 ECSAnVis project and have been shown to be effective and useful in over twenty case studies in twelve countries in the Global South. Our research has thus demonstrated that any community with low technical literacy can play a part and collect data with smartphones in all the different landscapes of the planet, from rainforest to drylands and croplands. Enabling this has the potential of engaging 1 billion people, currently excluded from knowledge co-production.

The ECSTATIC project is taking the next step in scaling up the use of this novel socio-technical approach to develop large scale community-led social-ecological services. The approach holds the potential of addressing a wide range of social and environmental issues - from protecting resources that are critical for Indigenous people, to mitigating climate change risks, and monitoring supply chains in remote locations through co-created citizen science. The aim of the project is to develop the next generation of Sapelli technology so it is streamlined and integrated, and therefore can be used more easily by third parties, as well as identify the necessary pathway for the development of a knowledge-based social business with Software as a Service and support services at its core. This way, the technology can remain free and open source, including guidelines and tutorials, while securing the necessary funding to develop it further. Collaborations with Non-Governmental Organisations in Cameroon and Ethiopia will ensure the efficacy and relevance of the project.