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Citizen Science Platforms

citizen engagement citizen science community programmes monitoring

Citizen science is increasingly becoming digitised. Digital platforms are used both to collate and share information about citizen science activities (as with Österreich forscht) and as a means to conduct remote species monitoring (as with MammalWeb). These platforms may offer opportunities to democratise and increase access to nature, allowing people in urban dwellings or those uable to travel due to health or care work to partake in remote landscape monitoring.

Austria

Österreich forscht

Österreich forscht is an online platform that seeks to promote the quality and profile of citizen science within Austria and enable collaboration across a wide variety of communities and organisations. The platform hopes to transform the way research is conducted and experienced in Austria, positioning it as a tool to be used by everyone.

The platform collates both live and past citizen science projects across Austria. These projects often incorporate smart forest technologies for monitoring, such as ecoacoustics and applications developed by Geo Wiki.

The website has pages dedicated to the platform's national and international networks. Österreich forscht also runs podcasts , blogs and conferences, which seek to connect with broad publics .

Screenshot of Österreich forscht webpage documenting live citizen science projects

Screenshot from Österreich forscht webpage documenting live citizen science projects in Austria

Durham, UK

MammalWeb

MammalWeb is a citizen science platform that aims to collate and verify camera trap data to improve understandings of the distribution, status and ecology of wild mammals. The platform, set up through a collaboration between Durham University and Durham Wildlife Trust, focuses on the UK and Europe. It is hoped the data gathered will contribute to effective science, policy and management.

MammalWeb concurrently seeks to engage with a broad community of citizen scientists (from diverse publics, to school children, to researchers), inviting them to classify species and deploy cameras. The platform looks to improve people's connection to nature, offering health and wellbeing benefits.

Everyone is welcomed to engage with the platform. There are three main strands through which citizens and researchers can become involved. Firstly, individuals can create an account to start identifying what is pictured in the uploaded images. Secondly, those who own or have access to a camera trap can upload data (including images, time stamps, and location information) to the MammalWeb site. Thirdly, organisations that work with networks of camera traps can reach out to MammalWeb to potentially establish joint projects. This would enable the organisation to upload their camera trap images to the platform and involve citizen scientists in classifying them.

MammalWeb demonstrates how digital technologies can be used to create digital access and extensive smart forest networks.

Screenshot of a camera trap image of a badger, sourced from MammalWeb webpage

Screenshot of a camera trap image of a badger, sourced from MammalWeb webpage

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