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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 :)
This year was one of the most difficult ones for all of us, with the Corona Virus pandemic, lockdowns and social distancing. But nevertheless, 2020 also brought good things and amazing new Citizen Science projects on the SPOTTERON platform. We loved the exciting work tasks and the diverse project topics which we have been allowed to design and develop in this strange year.
The new call in the EU Horizon 2020 program aims for supporting and implementing a Green Deal. For projects participating in this call and searching for partners for Citizen Science Apps and participatory tools, we are happy to help!
On this year's ECSA Citizen Science conference, we have been invited to hold a workshop on technology and the practice of design for Citizen Science. Since the conference moved completely online (read more about our experiences here in the Blog), we filled the session together with Jessie L. Oliver, who shared her research on how to design fun citizen science tech to find a sneaky Australia bird species (i.e. Eastern bristlebirds). Citizen Science is used and what technology implementation
From 6th to 10th of September, the European Citizen Science Conference ECSA 2020 took place in the virtual space. Since we have been designing and developing the SPOTTERON Citizen Science platform for apps and interactive toolkits since 2014 already, it was not our first conference on Citizen Science - at least for Philipp, who is quite a regular in terms of visiting conferences. But this year, things rarely have been normal, and so the virtual event of ECSA 2020 was something new to all of us
Green Growth Forests is another new app on the SPOTTERON citizen science platform and the first project from South America!
Making complex information easy to understand not just to scientists but also to citizens is an art form, especially when it comes to describing things or places very few among us have ever seen or experienced: space.
Our Citizen Science partner "Konrad Lorenz Research Center", running the Citizen Science App "Forschen im Almtal" on the SPOTTERON Platform and initiator of "NestCams", our first collaboration with Zooniverse, started a great initiative. At their research station, they host a colony of Northern Bald Ibis, amazing birds which you can also observe in the "Forschen I'm Almtal" Citizen Science App.
On Saturday last week, I was on a walk outside to get a little bit of sunshine. But since Citizen Science became a significant thing in my life, these rounds are not only for stretching my legs. With the smartphone in my pocket and a bunch of Citizen Science Apps installed, every walk feels like an adventure.
2019 has been an amazing year. The SPOTTERON Citizen Science platform evolved into an even more professional solution for participatory science applications. In summer, we organized the "SPOTTERON Feature Ecosystem" into various thematic packages for a better overview of what the platform brings to every new Citizen Science project. Furthermore, we were able to welcome new project partners from all across Europe, Australia and the United States of America on SPOTTERON.
A brand new feature for all Citizen Science apps on the SPOTTERON platform comes with the next release version: Citizen Science Events. With this new extension, the project teams can publish events like workshops or field trips directly in the Citizen Science app. Secondly, it is possible to create area events, to e.g. highlight, where more observations by the Citizen Scientists are needed.
During the iDiv Summer School 2019 "Citizen Science – Innovation in Open Science, Society, and Policy" in Leipzig, Germany, we co-created the concept for a free Citizen Science video called "Explore Citizen Science", which you can download and use freely.
