Developing citizen science capacity in organisations and citizens
Overview
The EDUcating Citizens and organisations in Citizen Science methodologies (EduCS) project aimed to:
- facilitate capacity building in organisations not normally involved or engaged with Citizen Science (CS) methodologies including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Royal Meteorological Society (RMets),
- collaborate with citizens as designers in producing CS investigations, and testing and enhancing the functionality of the nQuire platform (nquire.org.uk), an Open University CS learning platform designed to promote the development of scientific skills by allowing participation in all stages of scientific research, and
- launch a CS investigation to test the potential of nQuire to impact learning from public participation in CS investigations. The proposal tackles the need for collaboration with communities to test approaches to co-designing research questions, through two collaborative workshops with national organisations (BBC, RMets), citizens engaged as co-designers, academics, and software designers.
The role of IET
IET is leading on educating organisations and citizens in citizen science methodologies that place citizens and their learning in the centre of citizen science.
Impact
The project produced the following impacts:
- Two workshops with citizens, the BBC, RMets, and academics were delivered training participants in Citizen Science methodologies. Read more here.
- Two scientific investigations were launched on nQuire with support from the University of Manchester and Liverpool, BBC Weather, and RMets: the Climate Change and You and the Heatwaves: Are you coping? mission.
- Preliminary insights capturing the impact of participation on citizens’ learning.
