Challenges for Citizen Science and the EU Open Science Agenda under the GDPR

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Berti Suman ◽  
R. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-149
Author(s):  
Katherin Wagenknecht ◽  
Tim Woods ◽  
Francisco García Sanz ◽  
Margaret Gold ◽  
Anne Bowser ◽  
...  

Citizen Science (CS) is a prominent field of application for Open Science (OS), and the two have strong synergies, such as: advocating for the data and metadata generated through science to be made publicly available [ 1 ]; supporting more equitable collaboration between different types of scientists and citizens; and facilitating knowledge transfer to a wider range of audiences [ 2 ]. While primarily targeted at CS, the EU-Citizen. Science platform can also support OS. One of its key functions is to act as a knowledge hub to aggregate, disseminate and promote experience and know-how; for example, by profiling CS projects and collecting tools, resources and training materials relevant to both fields. To do this, the platform has developed an information architecture that incorporates the public participation in scientific research (PPSR)—Common Conceptual Model ① . This model consists of the Project Metadata Model, the Dataset Metadata Model and the Observation Data Model, which were specifically developed for CS initiatives. By implementing these, the platform will strengthen the interoperating arrangements that exist between other, similar platforms (e.g., BioCollect and SciStarter) to ensure that CS and OS continue to grow globally in terms of participants, impact and fields of application.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Stratilová Urválková ◽  
Svatava Janoušková

AbstractThe European Union has been facing common issues such as early school leaving and lifelong learning for years. They are main targets that remain on the EU agenda and all good practice examples are welcome. Citizen science is one of the approaches that seems to have great potential to draw a wide group of people to science in a popular way. People can easily become a part of a scientific team and contribute to research that could hardly be carried out by one small team. Many citizen science researchers deal with issues that are attractive for people because of their usefulness or application (gathering ticks, taking photographs of surroundings) and/or because of the accessibility of the data (typical for biological issues). This aspect also supports bridging the gap between citizens-amateurs and scientists-professionals, as well as lifelong learning. Chemistry is a natural science subject that is rarely performed in citizen science, and little research is devoted to the educational aspect of citizen science projects. Therefore, we present here a brief overview of an increasing scientific design that is widely used in natural science, although rarely in chemistry. Citizen science seems to be a potentially useful tool for improving chemistry education.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Hecker ◽  
Muki Haklay ◽  
Anne Bowser ◽  
Zen Makuch ◽  
Johannes Vogel ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. e24749
Author(s):  
Quentin Groom ◽  
Tim Adriaens ◽  
Damiano Oldoni ◽  
Lien Reyserhove ◽  
Diederik Strubbe ◽  
...  

Reducing the damage caused by invasive species requires a community approach informed by rapidly mobilized data. Even if local stakeholders work together, invasive species do not respect borders, and national, continental and global policies are required. Yet, in general, data on invasive species are slow to be mobilized, often of insufficient quality for their intended application and distributed among many stakeholders and their organizations, including scientists, land managers, and citizen scientists. The Belgian situation is typical. We struggle with the fragmentation of data sources and restrictions to data mobility. Nevertheless, there is a common view that the issue of invasive alien species needs to be addressed. In 2017 we launched the Tracking Invasive Alien Species (TrIAS) project, which envisages a future where alien species data are rapidly mobilized, the spread of exotic species is regularly monitored, and potential impacts and risks are rapidly evaluated in support of policy decisions (Vanderhoeven et al. 2017). TrIAS is building a seamless, data-driven workflow, from raw data to policy support documentation. TrIAS brings together 21 different stakeholder organizations that covering all organisms in the terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. These organizations also include those involved in citizen science, research and wildlife management. TrIAS is an Open Science project and all the software, data and documentation are being shared openly (Groom et al. 2018). This means that the workflow can be reused as a whole or in part, either after the project or in different countries. We hope to prove that rapid data workflows are not only an indispensable tool in the control of invasive species, but also for integrating and motivating the citizens and organizations involved.


2015 ◽  
Vol 66 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Orth ◽  
Birgit Schmidt

Open Science ist ein relativ junger Begriff, die zugrunde liegende Idee des Teilens von Wissen, Ergebnissen und Methoden ist jedoch so alt ist wie die Wissenschaft selbst. Open Science umfasst neben Open Access und Open Data – dem offenen Zugang zu Veröffentlichungen und Forschungsdaten – auch radikal neue Bereiche wie Citizen Science und Open Notebook Science. Seitdem die Europäische Kommission und andere Forschungsförderer zunehmend Open Access zu Publikationen und Daten in ihre Förderrichtlinien aufnehmen, ist es für Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler unumgänglich geworden, sich mit diesem Thema auseinanderzusetzen. Die Herausforderung bei der Umsetzung dieser Anforderungen ist nicht so sehr die Existenz und Zugänglichkeit relevanter Informationen, sondern die unübersichtliche Fülle an Material. Das von der Europäischen Kommission geförderte Projekt „Facilitating Open Science Training for European Research“ (FOSTER) führt deshalb eine breite Sammlung von Materialien und Kursen zum Thema Open Science zusammen und schafft so eine Lernressource für die europäische Forschungscommunity. Die Inhalte stehen möglichst über offene Lizenzen zur Verfügung, um die Nachnutzung in weiteren Schulungen zu unterstützen. Die Navigation durch die Fülle an Inhalten erfolgt entlang einer Taxonomie oder anhand von zielgruppenspezifischen Lernzielen, die zum Beispiel Projektmanager oder Multiplikatoren wie Bibliothekare adressieren. Der Artikel stellt die aktuellen Ergebnisse des Projektes vor, beleuchtet die Rolle der Niedersächsischen Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen im Projekt und gibt einen Ausblick auf die Aktivitäten im zweiten Projektjahr.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Ramachandran ◽  
Kaylin Bugbee ◽  
Kevin Murphy

<p>Open science is a concept that represents a fundamental change in scientific culture. This change is characterized by openness, where research objects and results are shared as soon as possible, and connectivity to a wider audience. Understanding about what Open Science actually means  differs from various stakeholders.</p><p>Thoughts on Open Science fall into four distinct viewpoints. The first viewpoint strives to make science accessible to a larger community by focusing on allowing non-scientists to participate in the research process through citizen science project and by more effectively communicating research results to the broader public. The second viewpoint considers providing equitable knowledge access to everyone by not only considering access to journal publications but also to other objects in the research process such as data and code. The third viewpoint focuses on making both the research process and the communication of results more efficient. There are two aspects to this component which can be described as social and technical components. The social component is driven by the need to tackle complex problems that require collaboration and a team approach to science while the technical component focuses on creating tools, services and especially scientific platforms to make the scientific process more efficient. Lastly, the fourth viewpoint strives to develop new metrics to measure scientific contributions that go beyond the current metrics derived solely from scientific publications and to consider contributions from other research objects such as data, code or knowledge sharing through blogs and other social media communication mechanisms. </p><p>Technological change is a factor in all four of these viewpoints on Open Science. New capabilities in compute, storage, methodologies, publication and sharing enable technologists to better serve as the primary drivers for Open Science by providing more efficient technological solutions. Sharing knowledge, information and other research objects such as data and code has become easier with new modalities of sharing available to researchers. In addition, technology is enabling the democratization of science at two levels. First, researchers are no longer constrained by lack of infrastructure resources needed to tackle difficult problems. Second, the Citizen Science projects now involve the public at different steps of the scientific process from collecting the data to analysis.</p><p>This presentations investigates the four described viewpoints on Open Science from the perspective of any large organization involved in scientific data stewardship and management. The presentation will list possible technological strategies that organizations may adopt to further align with all aspects of the Open Science movement. </p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-28
Author(s):  
C. Rossel ◽  
L. van Dyck

The movement towards an Open Science is well engaged and irreversible. It includes Open Access publishing, Open Data and Open Collaborations with several new orientations, among which citizen science. Indeed, in the digital era, the way research is performed, its output shared and published is changing significantly, as are the expectations of policy makers and society at large.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bård Smedsrød ◽  
Eirik Reierth ◽  
Lars Moksness ◽  
Leif Longva

Watch the VIDEO of the presentation.Journal coordinated peer reviewing, a hallmark of scholarly publishing, is also a pivotal part of other central academic processes, such as evaluation of research grant applications, and ranking of applicants for faculty/research positions. Hence, journal coordinated peer reviewing may be viewed as “the mother of academic peer reviewing”. On this background, it is astonishing that universities and other public R&D institutions take only a very limited interest in the management and policy shaping of this cornerstone of scholarly publishing.We suggest that the universities need to become more aware of the pivotal role of the peer reviewing jobs carried out by their professors and researchers. The peer reviewing should be viewed as a partial, in kind payment from the institutions involved to the journal publishers. The advantages of this are manifold: i) negotiating power that may lead to easier and quicker implementation of open access publishing and/or ii) reducing costs, in particular the unjustifiably high subscription and licensing rates set by the big commercial publishing houses; iii) better control of how scientific staff use their time for the good of the university; iv) managing a unified policy shaping of peer reviewing, reducing fraud and flaws. This will in turn increase quality of the research produced by the universities.    The EU has recently announced their goal of making all European scientific articles freely accessible by 2020. This announcement was made unanimously by the EU ministers responsible for research and innovation. The ministers have not announced what means to use in achieving their announced goal. We suggest a united approach whereby taking control of the peer review job could be an interesting road to follow. Such a unified international action among universities and grant agencies would be very beneficial in order to make the changes needed to establish peer reviewing as a truly academically based responsibility. The increasing international agreements and actions to implement open access publishing are indications that such changes are possible. By standing together universities will be able to break the economic grip that the big commercial publishing houses have on academic research.Some may argue that it is the right of each individual scientist to decide on the extent and for what journal to perform peer reviewing. However, if an employer for some reason limits the amount of time used to do peer reviewing for certain commercial publishing houses, it would not interfere with the academic freedom to do research and to choose freely where and how to publish. After all, work contracts include instructions on how to perform a certain amount of teaching, administration and research. The option of directing where to do or not to do peer review should not be very controversial.By taking control of and organizing peer reviewing universities would obtain a means to regain the academic freedom that was lost when commercial enterprises took over the society driven journals, introducing heavy paywalls. And it may facilitate a development towards an open science regime.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michiel Van Oudheusden ◽  
Huib Huyse ◽  
Jef Van Laer ◽  
Annelies Duerinckx ◽  
Violet Soen
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Evans ◽  
Marc van Hoof ◽  
Laura Hartman ◽  
Ana Marusic ◽  
Bert Gordijn ◽  
...  

Background: The areas of Research Ethics and Research Integrity (RE+RI) are rapidly evolving. In the EU and internationally, new legislation, codes of conduct and good practices are constantly being developed. New technologies (e.g. gene editing), complex statistical methods (e.g. biostatistics), pressure to publish and obtain grants, and growing emphasis on stakeholder driven science (e.g. public-private partnerships) increase the complexity of conducting science. In this complex and dynamic environment, researchers cannot easily identify the correct rules and best tools for responsible conduct of research. This also increasingly constitutes a challenge for RE+RI experts. Aim: Our aim is to create a platform that makes the normative framework governing RE+RI easily accessible, supports application in research and evaluation, and involves all stakeholders in a participatory way, thus achieving sustainability. The platform will foster uptake of ethical standards and responsible conduct of research, and ultimately support research excellence and strengthen society’s confidence in research and its findings. Vision: Our vision is that in order to make the normative framework governing RE+RI accessible, a dynamic online Wiki-platform, owned by the community of RE+RI stakeholders, is needed. The value of this platform will lie in the availability of practical information on how to comply with EU, national and discipline-specific RE+RI standards and legislation, including information on rules and procedures, educational materials, and illustrative cases and scenarios. Adopting open science (open source and open data) approaches, the platform will be easy to use, by applying novel techniques for data collection and comparison, enabling users to navigate quickly and intuitively to appropriate content. In order to keep the platform up-to-date and sustainable, it will be based upon active involvement of the RE+RI community, and will contribute to further development of this community by providing a podium for reflection and dialogue on RE+RI norms and practices. Objectives: EnTIRE’s work packages (WP) will: undertake an in-depth stakeholder consultation across EU countries exploring RE+RI experiences and practices in order to define the boundaries of data to be collected, and developing a mapping structure adapted to user needs (WP 2); assemble the relevant normative elements, including RE+RI rules and procedures, educational materials, and illustrative casuistry, and identify relevant institutions across EU countries (WP 3-5); develop a user-friendly Wiki-platform and online resources to foster and facilitate responsible research practices and to promote compliance amongst European researchers with RE+RI standards and pertinent legislation and regulations (WP 6); and foster further development of the RE+RI community, that will support the platform and be supported by it, will keep the information up-to-date, disseminate the project’s findings and develop innovative strategies for maintaining the platform and building relationships to relevant organisations for further dissemination, including sustainable funding (WP 7). Relevance to the work programme: The proposed project responds directly to the core requirement of call SwafS-16-2016 to ‘provide a dynamic mapping of the RE+RI normative framework which applies to scientific research conducted in the EU and beyond’. Our proposal does this by using a participatory approach, stimulating knowledge transfer regarding codes and regulations, resources and institutions, and cases, by applying innovative ICT solutions and open science approaches, and by further developing a community of active users, to enable sustainability after the end of the project.


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