Affordances and tensions in recording bird observations: how coordinators and volunteers perceive and experience citizen science in birding

Helen Verploegen, Wessel Ganzevoort, Riyan van den Born

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Digital citizen science projects differ greatly in their goals and design. Tensions arise when coordinators' design choices and conceptions of citizen science conflict with users' motivations and expectations. In this paper, we use a combination of qualitative methods to gain new insights into the ways citizen science is understood and implemented digitally. This includes a study into the affordances of two citizen science portals for bird observations, and qualitative interviews with users and coordinators of the portals. This reveals tensions related to data sharing, community hierarchies, and communicated expectations. Awareness of these tensions can benefit the future design of online citizen science projects.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-19
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Science Communication
Volume20
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • Citizen science
  • Public engagement with science and technology

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