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Community Science; Participatory Science : Home

Building community engagement with university research.

Steenbock Librarian

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Karen Dunn
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Science & Engineering Libraries (SEL)

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Science & Engineering Libraries

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Science & Engineering Libraries

Email: AskSEL@library.wisc.edu

Introduction to this guide...

Community scientists advance knowledge by observing phenomena, recording data, and assisting, actively, with professional researchers in the field. This guide has been created to bring together selected resources that speak to community, participatory science as a topic of scholarship and community of practice as well as to opportunities through which our students, general public, and research staff can engage.

While opportunities abound, it has been my intent (primarily) to identify and to link to programs, projects, and educational tools (library collections and services) from within our "neighborhood"-- our institution, Wisconsin, and the Midwest.

Companion Research Guide

Research Impact: Broader Societal Impacts

Community Science; Citizen Science Inspiration

"Citizen Science: Everybody Counts" with Caren Cooper. TEDx Greensboro, 2017.

Engage with Science in Our Community (Campus Calendar of Events)

Citizen Science: Theory and Practice (journal)

  • Consistency and Validity of Participatory Science Data: A Comparison of Seasonality Patterns of Northern California and Nevada Birds Across eBird and iNaturalistThis link opens in a new window Participatory science platforms like iNaturalist and eBird support large, engaged communities of observers who produce substantial amounts of biodiversity data. Despite similarities across platforms, their participants are quite distinct in profile (e.g., hobbyists versus enthusiasts) and contribute data in different manners, frequencies, and magnitudes, raising questions about platform-specific biases and whether combining species-level data across platforms is advisable. This study establishes a methodology for assessing mergeability of observation records from iNaturalist and eBird using relative temporal distributions. Specifically, we employed circular statistical methods to compare seasonality patterns using records from 254 bird species in Northern California and Nevada during 2019 and 2022. We developed a circular optimal transport-based test to assess statistical equivalence of frequency distributions within species across platforms and years. Using eBird 2022 as a baseline, we found that over 97% of species were mergeable from eBird 2019 and iNaturalist 2022 datasets, and over 88% of species were mergeable using iNaturalist 2019 records. Subsequent comparison of combined data revealed archetypal seasonality patterns that matched known migratory behaviors or otherwise exhibited discrepancies explainable with expert knowledge about observer and bird behavior. Our findings provide quantitative evidence to suggest that only a small minority of species in our study exhibit major differences that prevent them from being reasonably integrated across platforms, and our approach highlights the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration in analyzing participatory science data. These results indicate transformative potential for participatory science projects small and large to contribute to broadscale analyses by organizing and pooling data across projects. Mar 27, 2025
  • Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Citizen ScienceThis link opens in a new windowDec 8, 2024
  • Themed Social Networking Groups as Effective Sources of Data: A Country-wide Survey on Invasive Bigheaded Carp (<em>Hipophthalmichthys molitrix</em>&nbsp;and H. <em>nobilis</em>) Detection and DistributionThis link opens in a new window Citizen science commonly uses social networking platforms because they provide the easiest way to contact people. Social networking platforms can also be especially effective in that they gather people by interest and region. By sharing questionnaires and collecting photographs in angling-themed Facebook groups, we assessed the applicability of social networking groups in citizen science surveys to evaluate the distribution patterns of invasive bigheaded carp in Hungary. Altogether, we received 1,234 responses from 29 Facebook groups to four survey solicitations, with responses coming from 417 locations from across Hungary. The majority of responses were received in the first (mean ± SD; 74.3% ± 5.3) and second days (12.5% ± 5.5) after a survey questionnaire was posted. Group size was positively correlated with reach but inversely with reach ratio (reached members divided by the total number of group members). We collected 311 photos of 622 bigheaded carp, of which 470 were H. molitrix and 67 were H. nobilis. Although spatial bias occurred both in responses to survey questionnaires and available photographs, presence of bigheaded carp was confirmed in all medium and large rivers and many lentic habitats in Hungary. We demonstrated that social media groups can be used to survey interested members of the public and facilitate rapid data collection, providing an effective platform for citizen science. Repeated, spaced sharing of survey solicitations in as many groups as possible (regardless of group size) is the cornerstone for effective data collection. Our survey provided more effective and inexpensively obtained information about the distribution of bigheaded carp than standard catch-based methods. Nov 19, 2024
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Participatory Sciences in Higher Education

Spotlight

Get involved with Citizen Science at the UW-Madison Arboretum!

Citizen science is well established at the Arboretum. Key projects focus on monarch butterflies, dragonflies, birds, fungal diversity, and water quality monitoring. The Arboretum also partners with state and federal agencies, academic institutions, and nonprofit groups on programs related to its mission and research priorities.

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Spotlight!