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.

We are delighted to hear that our partner’s, the University of Sydney’s, Big City Birds app is making a big impact in Australia, as a recent article in the Guardian Australia shows.
The Citizen Science app that allows city-dwellers to turn into scientists and track Australia’s urban birds runs on the SPOTTERON platform.

In many Citizen Science and community engagement projects, participants may be reluctant to enter any data that may be sensitive, either, e.g. because of contributing an endangered species or for not wanting to share the location of their private garden.

The Univerity of Sydney invites citizens to take part in their latest Citizen Science project, Big City Birds, running on the SPOTTERON platform. The project aims to find out more about the adaptability of certain bird species in cities and urban areas.

The finalist 2020 for the Eureka Prize for Innovation in Citizen Science Australia has been announced. Congratulations to Team Brush Turkey who are listed with the BrushTurkey app, which is running on the SPOTTERON platform!

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!

Biodiversity apps are booming, so it is no surprise that even traditional newspapers are writing about it. We are therefore proud to report that our co-founder Philipp was interviewed by the prestigious Austrian newspaper "Der Standard" (print edition) on new technologies and nature apps.

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 means for Citizen Science Apps and interactive online tools. Thanks for inviting us to be part of that session!

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:

From the 6th to 10th of September, the European Citizen Science Conference 2020 by ECSA will be held exclusively online in Trieste, Italy.

What is the best way for a Citizen Scientist to observe a specific plant, landscape, place, etc. over a more extended period of time and gather valuable data during its course?

Our world is subject to constant change.
It establishes itself by constant development and evolution, triggered by events like human activity, climate change, erosion, or simply the changing of the seasons, and many more. These changes in observational data are not just a side effect, but they're often the primary focus for scientists and the research project.

Green Growth Forests is another new app on the SPOTTERON citizen science platform and the first project from South America!

For Citizen Science projects, it is essential to understand the needs of the user and how to design interactive products and apps to guarantee good usability – which is highly involving. Researching and observing should be an experience with added value. Therefore User Journeys are often used in the progress of developing a new Application. 

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.

KraMobil is a new Citizen Science Project of the University of Vienna in cooperation with ZooVienna to observe crows and their behaviour.

Spot-A-Bee, a new app by The University of Glasgow and the Cardiff University aims to find out which plants in urban areas are especially bee-friendly and help bee populations thrive.

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.

Challenging times require creative solutions. The current corona crisis is a perfect example of that. That’s why we are excited to announce that the University of Edinburgh joined forces with SPOTTERON once more to create the CoronaReport Citizen Science app because understanding the social impact of COVID-19 on society is very important - not only for research but for society itself.

In today's fast and everchanging world, it can seem tedious to syphon through the haze of information to find the relevant one. A quick search on Google is undoubtedly a good thing, but what if you need the information to be verified as quickly, as possible?
Many users will turn to social media to do that. Why? Because on Twitter, you can find news in real-time. Without much effort, you can verify a piece of information in an instant.