Last week it was time for the annual European Researchers Night, a mega event which takes place simultaneously in hundreds of cities all over Europe, again. Of course we couldn't miss it and went to the event at the TGM in the 20th district of Vienna.
We were very proud to see that the latest Citizen Science project to join the SPOTTERON platform and also winner of the Australian Citizen Science Conference competition was featured on Australian news last week.
Thanks for all the CitizenScience! We wish you a happy New Year's Eve and many more exciting #CitSci moments in the upcoming year. We have already new projects coming up, the first one about light pollution and Citizen Science will be ready in 1st of February. But for now, we are off until the end of first week of the new year - see you in 2019!
When developing a Citizen Science app, you can influence usability in many ways. But these crucial decisions can be decisive factors when it comes down to whether they enjoy using it and do so regularly.
We are very happy to be featured in the new Citizen Sience 4.0 article by Maximilian Ueberham in the gis.Business magazine (Ausgabe 01/2019). After a short introduction about Citizen Science author Maximilian Ueberham presents Citizen Sience projects, including the SPOTTERON Citizen Science platform.
On Wednesday, the 6th of March, the first "Day of Phenology" took place at the ZAMG in Vienna. We have also been invited by one of our project partners from the "Naturkalender App".
When developing Citizen Science Apps, the usability has a big impact on how well and frequent people use them in the end. The goal for Citizen Science Apps is to become an important part in the everyday lives of their users in the long term, so that users can gain experience and can contribute important data to scientific projects.
Today marks the release day for our Citizen Science interview series! Continuously we are going to publish interviews with different head of projects running on the SPOTTERON Platform.
Last week, the Austrian Citizen Science conference took place in Obergurgl, Tyrolia and we took the occasion to arrive one day earlier to visit the mountainside and get a good view of the impressive landscape surrounding the area.As Citizen Scientists, we always love to stumble apon new things to record and contribute in various scientific projects.
During summer, many conferences on Citizen Science and other events are happening. To spread the word about Citizen Science and share our experience in creating interactive Citizen Science apps, we had quite a schedule this year..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Here are some first impressions by 2 conference newbies and a regular:
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!
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.
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 :)
