EU BON citizen science gateway Veljo Runnel University of Tartu Natural History Museum

Citizen science for biodiversity research Citizen Science - “volunteer collection of biodiversity and environmental data which contributes to expanding our knowledge of the natural environment, including biological monitoring and the collection of interpretation of environmental observations” UK Environmental Observation Framework recommendation, Understanding Citizen Science and Environmental Monitoring This is not understandable. Please rephrase. Reference?

Citizen science for biodiversity research Documenting and sharing biodiversity occurrences easier than ever before: Digital recording – photo, video, soundrecording. Automatically recorded metadata – coordinates, time, owner of media. Online networks, portals

Are researchers ready for citizen scientists participation? Survey „Assessing Citizen Science involvement in biological research“ EUBON (2014) In your research, have you used any help or data input from volunteers? Would you use volunteer help/data input in the future? (All respondents)

Are researchers ready for citizen scientists participation? Survey „Assessing Citizen Science involvement in biological research“ EUBON (2014) FieldN Actual engagement of volunteers Willingness to engage volunteers in future Agriculture250% Biosystematics1656%63 % Ecology7659%90 % Environment protection2576%92 % Molecular biology617%83 % Other2556%84 %

Are researchers ready for citizen scientists participation? Survey „Assessing Citizen Science involvement in biological research“ EUBON (2014) Type of institutionN Actual engagement of volunteers Willingness to engage volunteers in future Academic11955%84 % NGO1694%100 % Government agency1471%86 %

Are researchers ready for citizen scientists participation? Survey „Assessing Citizen Science involvement in biological research“ EUBON (2014) Reasons for engaging citizen scientistsReasons for NOT engaging citizen scientists Need to increase amount and variety of data (48% of respondents) There are enough resources to do the research with professionals only (13%) Educational aspect is important for 17% Engaging volunteers takes too big effort (12%), Sometimes the volunteer data is the only data source for research There are no capable volunteers (10%) Research topic is too specific or work too demanding to engage citizen scientists Concern about data quality

Are researchers ready for citizen scientists participation? Researchers rated the citizen science data quality: high – 15 %, satisfactory – 78 %, low - 7 %. Survey „Assessing Citizen Science involvement in biological research“ EUBON (2014)

According 1,2 million observations – 0,5 million of them research grade (and available in GBIF portal) What data is available from citizen science sources? GBIF as important international infrastructure for publishing biodiversity data.

eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) What data is available from citizen science sources? GBIF

eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) What data is available from citizen science sources?

Norwegian Species Observation Service (Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre, University of Oslo) What data is available from citizen science sources? GBIF

Norwegian Species Observation Service (Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre, University of Oslo) What data is available from citizen science sources?

iNaturalist (supported by California Academy of Sciences) GBIF

What data is available from citizen science sources? iNaturalist (supported by California Academy of Sciences) ca occurrences in iNaturalist ca from them „research grade“ and published to GBIF

What data is available from citizen science sources? iNaturalist (supported by California Academy of Sciences)

Observation data published through GBIF Citizen science data mobilisation - challenges

Observation data published through GBIF

Preserved specimen data published through GBIF Citizen science data mobilisation - challenges

Not all taxa are popular among citizen scientists House Sparrow Passer domesticus … Citizen science data mobilisation - challenges GBIF

Challenges Not all taxa are popular among citizen scientists … vs House Fly Musca domestica GBIF

Challenges Language barriers Data duplication in different portals and databases Access unavailable data …

Citizen science data mobilisation EU BON citizen science gateway -mobilise CS data which is still unavailable or incompatible with international biodiversity research community standards -integrate citizen science into policy making -facilitate the adopting of existing data standards for data management -provide „meeting place“ for researchers, citizen scientists and policymakers

Citizen science data mobilisation EU BON citizen science gateway MS152 Prototype (alpha version) of citizen science gateway established at EU BON portal Delivery month: 24 MS153 Workshop on alpha version of citizen science gateway Delivery month: 26 MS154 Workshop on final version of citizen science gateway Delivery month: 44 Deliverable 1.2 Summary report and strategy recommendations for EU citizen science gateway for biodiversity data Delivery month: 44

EU BON citizen science gateway - module for managing citizen science data on the PlutoF platform

EU BON citizen science gateway - registry of online citizen science platforms, tools and guides

EU BON citizen science gateway Further developments: Best practise case analysis Guides for effective citizen science project managementl repository] Integration with EU BON data portal Collaboration with major citizen science organisations as ECSA (European Citizen Science Association)

Thank you!