Hughes Courtney, Tremblett Krista, Kummer Justine, Lee Tracy S, Duke Danah
Alberta Environment and Parks, Government of Alberta, 9607 Shand Avenue, Box 239, Grande Cache, AB T0E 0Y0, Canada.
Miistakis Institute, Mount Royal University, Rm U271 Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB T3E 6K6, Canada.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Apr 20;12(9):1068. doi: 10.3390/ani12091068.
Citizen science offers an excellent opportunity to engage the public in scientific data collection, educational opportunities, and applied management. However, the practicalities of developing and implementing citizen science programming are often more complex than considered. Some challenges to effective citizen science include scientists' skepticism about the ability of public participants to rigorously collect quality data; a lack of clarity on or confidence in the utility of data; scientists' hesitancy in engaging the public in projects; limited financial commitments; and challenges associated with the temporal and geographic scales of projects. To address these challenges, and provide a foundation upon which practitioners, scientists, and the public can credibly engage in citizen science, the Government of Alberta developed a set of citizen science principles. These principles offer a framework for planning, designing, implementing, and evaluating citizen science projects that extend beyond Alberta. Here, we present a case study using these principles to evaluate GrizzTracker, a citizen science program developed to help inform provincial species-at-risk recovery efforts. While we found that GrizzTracker applied each of the six principles in some way, including successful public engagement, strengthened relationships, and raising public awareness about northwest Alberta's grizzly bears, we also identified a number of challenges. These included ongoing skepticism from the traditional scientific community about the utility of citizen science and governance challenges related to program leadership, staff capacity, and funding. By using the principles as a guideline, we provide policy recommendations for future citizen science efforts, including considerations for program design, implementation, and evaluation.
公民科学为公众参与科学数据收集、教育机会和应用管理提供了绝佳契机。然而，开发和实施公民科学项目的实际情况往往比预想的更为复杂。有效开展公民科学面临的一些挑战包括：科学家对公众参与者严格收集高质量数据能力的怀疑；对数据效用缺乏清晰认识或信心；科学家在让公众参与项目方面的犹豫；资金投入有限；以及与项目时间和地理范围相关的挑战。为应对这些挑战，并为从业者、科学家和公众能够可靠地参与公民科学提供一个基础，艾伯塔省政府制定了一套公民科学原则。这些原则为规划、设计、实施和评估超越艾伯塔省范围的公民科学项目提供了一个框架。在此，我们展示一个案例研究，运用这些原则来评估GrizzTracker，这是一个为协助为该省濒危物种恢复工作提供信息而开发的公民科学项目。虽然我们发现GrizzTracker在某种程度上应用了六项原则中的每一项，包括成功的公众参与、加强的关系以及提高公众对艾伯塔省西北部灰熊的认识，但我们也发现了一些挑战。这些挑战包括传统科学界对公民科学效用的持续怀疑，以及与项目领导、工作人员能力和资金相关的管理挑战。通过将这些原则作为指导方针，我们为未来的公民科学工作提供政策建议，包括对项目设计、实施和评估的考量。
