Empowering Citizen Science: A Generic Data Collection Framework

Citizen Science (CS) is collaboration between scientists and citizens to expand opportunities for scientific data collection and problem solving. Recent advancements such as the Internet, social networks and smart devices have created a technological platform for CS to engage more citizens to work on a wide range of scientific problems. Due to technical, financial and management resource constraints many organisations struggle to develop effective tools to collect scientific data in CS projects. A robust web and mobile interface for scientific data collection will ensure collection of higher quality scientific data. While web and mobile applications have been developed for some CS projects many CS projects are hindered by the complexity and intrinsic costs of implementing these applications. This thesis describes a web-based model for CS data collection suitable for both small CS communities and larger scientific organisations. Offering features commonly used in CS projects, this model reduces costs associated with software implementation and management in CS. A CS campaign is undertaken as a case study that validates our model in a real world scenario. Overall the generic data collection framework presented will empower communities and organisations to engage and use CS in more ways and on large scales