New Video! An introduction to the SPOTTERON Citizen Science App Platform

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In the course of our submission to the current "EU Prize for Citizen Science", we have produced a new video as an introduction to the SPOTTERON Citizen Science platform. The clip showcases the core aspects of what the platform brings to Citizen Science projects across Europe and beyond. As an interactive toolkit, every Citizen Science App not only ...
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Discover how a Citizen Science App is helping to protect Kenya's Mammals: the new Video about MAKENYA

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The MAKENYA Mammal Atlas App is a Kenyan citizen science mobile-based application that allows users to monitor and track rare and common mammals. It allows users to use their map location or GPS coordinates of the area they spotted a particular mammal, share pictures, and identify the species. The project has been the first Citizen S...
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Thank you for all the Citizen Science 2022!

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As the year comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude for all the partnerships and support in 2022. A wide range of new exciting projects has helped to expand the platform for improving the impact and quality of Citizen Science Apps. Our collaborations with stakeholders, institutions, and project partners from ...
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How to work with young people in Citizen Science? - Complying with privacy laws and parental consent requirements in Apps

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In many Citizen Science Apps, participants are younger than 16 or 18 years of age. From educational school-based projects to including the youth in workshops, feedback, or data collection: the engagement of younger people is often at the core of Citizen Science projects. To invite underaged children to be active in a digital tool like Citizen ...
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New Direct Communication Tools for Citizen Science Apps: User Message Boards

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User-to-user communication and project-to-user communication are essential parts of modern interactive Citizen Science. In the new platform update, we extend the already present features in all Apps on the SPOTTERON platform with another significant upgrade: User Message Boards. Exchanging messages, enabling discussion Being able to contact each ot...
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Quo vadis, Twitter? - A Statement on the current situation on Twitter

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As you may know, the ownership of Twitter has changed. Since then, the dynamic has spun increasingly out of control on that social platform. The new owner first changes core moderation policies to allow "free speech" (which means more radicalism in a social network) while censoring everything he dislikes. Secondly, there is chaos. The new owner ins...
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This was the ECSA Citizen Science Conference 2022 in Berlin

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From the 5th to the 8th of October, the ECSA Citizen Science Conference 2022 took place in Berlin under the motto "Citizen Science for Planetary Health."We have been attending this fantastic bi-annual event (for sure) and spent four days in Germany's capital to learn more about citizen science and various approaches, definitions, and projects while...
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The ECSA European Citizen Science Conference 2022 takes place in October in Berlin - Meet us there!

Meet us at the ECSA Citizen Science Conference 2022
 The ECSA European Citizen Science Conference is Europe's major meeting point every two years for actors and stakeholders in Citizen Science. In 2022, it takes place in Berlin, Germany, and we look forward to traveling to the North of Europe for Citizen Science! This year's conference motto, "Citizen Science for Planetary Health" reflects the ...
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Map Types for Citizen Science Apps

Map Styles in Citizen Science Apps
In Citizen Science Apps, the map often plays a central role. On SPOTTERON, different map types stand ready for every participant to use as a personal choice and for supporting correct locations when submitting data in the App.  We are always at some place - and the map in a Citizen Science App reflects this connection. In Citizen Science,...
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Working together with the Community for better Data Validation in Citizen Science Apps

Citizen Science Data Quality Validation with the help of the Community
One of the often very time-intensive tasks when running a Citizen Science project is the validation of the gathered data. Is the user-provided information correct? Does the species classification work out? Is the location correct? The complexity of this task grows with the success of a Citizen Science project. When hundreds of new contribution...
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Does Data Validation improve with the community's help in Citizen Science Apps?

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The new "Community Data Validation" Feature on the SPOTTERON Platform allows Citizen Scientists to be more deeply involved in the scientific process. The feature update in the ClimateWatch App by Earthwatch Australia allows users not only to submit observations but also to assess the accuracy and support the observations of...
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On the Living Knowledge Conference 2022 in Groningen & the Mudflats

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The 9th Living Knowledge Conference 2022 took place in Groningen, Netherlands, from the 29th of June to the 1st of July. The Living Knowledge Network, the organizer of the conference, is a vital actor in the fields of Science Communication, Community-based Research, and Citizen Science. The Network works closely with Civil Society Organisations (CS...
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PatioSpots: The new toilet finder on the SPOTTERON Citizen Science platform

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People in different stages of life and situations immediately need to find a publicly accessible toilet in a short time for different reasons. That is why the PATIO Spots App project was developed by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Applied Diagnostics together with researchers from academia and self-help groups. The Citizen Science App is a helper i...
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Custom Project User Roles in Citizen Science Apps

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It is often the case in Citizen Science Apps that participants have different levels of experience, tools, or knowledge levels. Examples of this can emerge in many research topics, from experts on species classification to people with measuring equipment. With the new SPOTTERON platform feature "User Roles," we have created the basis for an extenda...
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Spatial Data Recording for Citizen Science Apps

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Many Citizen Science and User Engagement projects utilize more than only point data for locations and spatial dimensions. Examples are plentiful - from setting up transects for counting butterflies to recording habitats and transformations. Spatial Data Recording in Citizen Science Apps For that purpose, we have developed a new feature for all Citi...
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Adapting Citizen Science App-Icons to a new technology

Adaptive Citizen Science App Icons on SPOTTERON
All Apps have a thing in common. They have an App-Icon. This visual element is one of the first things a participant in a Citizen Science App sees - and this makes it a vital part of a project. The first encounter with the App-Icon is already happening on the App Store page. Here, the App-Icon of a Citizen Science App represents a project and serve...
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User Mentions and Push Notifications - Enabling immediate direct communication for all Citizen Science Apps

The new User Mentions feature for Citizen Science App communication
Imagine a Citizen Scientist asking a question inside your project's App. What if a reply directly reaches the user on the smartphone with a beep as soon it is posted? This next level of immediacy is now a reality with the new "User Mention" feature for all Apps on the SPOTTERON platform. The new functionality enables direct and personal commun...
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A Milestone for Citizen Science: SPOTTERON 3.0 is here!

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It has been a busy year here at SPOTTERON. Despite the ongoing global pandemic, we are happy that a new platform generation is finally ready for your Citizen Science Apps! After months of building up the groundwork, thorough evaluation, testing and improving, we are excited to present you the new and most extensive Citizen Science Platform we've ev...
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Celebrating Participation - Celebrating #CitizenScience! Collectible Cards for #CitSciOz21

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For the Australian #CitSciOz21 conference, we made something special. Throughout the conference, we will reveal 12 #CitSci Collectors Cards, highlighting user contributions in various Australian Apps on the SPOTTERON Platform. In this blog post, you can find all Collectible Cards revealed time by time. Enjoy! We will update all previous&n...
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What we need to bring new people to Citizen Science: our strategy for reaching out and engaging new people who have never heard of Citizen Science before

What we need to bring new people to Citizen Science: our strategy for reaching out and engaging new people who have never heard of Citizen Science before

I am a Citizen Scientist. I have been one since I was eight years old, albeit without ever hearing the term even once. I was interested in nature, the environment, and I spent hours after hours exploring the wildlife in ponds, my parents' garden, forests, and even brown land. (Oh, I love brown land, I still sneak through construction fences to explore them sometimes :)

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Short News

  • A new paper from the Horizon 2020 project IPM titled "Genetic variability of Metarhizium isolates from the Ticino Valley Natural Park (Northern Italy) as a possible microbiological resource for the management of Popillia japonica" has been added to our page. Find this and other Citizen Science related publications on the SPOTTERON Papers & Publications section.

    in Shortnews
  • Three new papers on the SemantiX project titled "Accessing Multiple Semantic EO Data Cubes in One Graphical User Interface", " Think global, cube local: an Earth Observation Data Cube’s contribution to the Digital Earth vision", and "Semantic Querying in Earth Observation Data Cubes" have been added to the SPOTTERON paper section.

    in Shortnews