Citizen Science
The izeltlabuak.hu website primarily focuses on arthropods found in Hungary. This entry also deals with Hungarian fauna.
What is Citizen Science?
Citizen Science (community science) is a research approach in which the scientific community involves laypeople - volunteers, students, and local communities - in the research process. Participants contribute to scientific projects through data collection, observations, and analysis, whether it's environmental monitoring, biological surveys, or technological research.
ECSA and the 10 Principles of Citizen Science
The European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) was founded in 2014, which brought together various professionals and institutions dealing with Citizen Science. Its purpose is to support the sharing of experiences and ideas related to Citizen Science, to disseminate the results of Citizen Science projects, and to build a community. It functions as an aggregator, collecting European good practices, community science-related guidelines, guides, and publications.
The Association developed 10 principles of Citizen Science, which were widely used for the implementation of projects, for addressing research groups and legislators, and for the scientific recognition of results.
The 10 principles of Citizen Science:
1. Meaningful participation
Citizen science projects actively involve citizens in scientific endeavor that generates new knowledge or understanding. Citizens may act as contributors, collaborators, or as project leader and have a meaningful role in the project.
2. Genuine science outcome
Citizen science projects have a genuine science outcome. For example, answering a research question or informing conservation action, management decisions or environmental policy.
3. Mutual benefit
Both the professional scientists and the citizen scientists benefit from taking part. Benefits may include the publication of research outputs, learning opportunities, personal enjoyment, social benefits, satisfaction through contributing to scientific evidence e.g. to address local, national and international issues, and through that, the potential to influence policy.
4. Participation in multiple stages
Citizen scientists may, if they wish, participate in multiple stages of the scientific process. This may include developing the research question, designing the method, gathering and analyzing data, and communicating the results.
5. Feedback
Citizen scientists receive feedback from the project. For example, how their data are being used and what the research, policy or societal outcomes are.
6. Research approach with limitations
Citizen science is considered a research approach like any other, with limitations and biases that should be considered and controlled for. However unlike traditional research approaches, citizen science provides opportunity for greater public engagement and democratization of science.
7. Open data and results
Citizen science project data and meta-data are made publicly available and where possible, results are published in an open access format. Data sharing may occur during or after the project, unless there are security or privacy concerns that prevent this.
8. Acknowledgement
Citizen scientists are acknowledged in project results and publications.
9. Evaluation
Citizen science programmes are evaluated for their scientific output, data quality, participant experience and wider societal or policy impact.
10. Legal and ethical responsibility
The leaders of citizen science projects take into consideration legal and ethical issues surrounding copyright, intellectual property, data sharing agreements, confidentiality, attribution, and the environmental impact of any activities.
Source: ECSA (European Citizen Science Association). 2015. Ten Principles of Citizen Science. Berlin.
izeltlabuak.hu as a Citizen Science Project
izeltlabuak.hu is an excellent example of citizen science projects in Hungary and operates in line with the ECSA 10 principles. The platform meets citizen science criteria in the following ways:
1. Community Participation
The platform ensures the involvement of laypeople in the scientific process through the active participation of more than 5,732 users. Through voluntary data collection and observations, broad social participation is realized, where nature enthusiasts, photographers, and researchers collaborate in understanding the Hungarian arthropod world.
2. Scientific Quality
Participating experts identify the observations, thus ensuring expert review and validation. Publishable scientific results are produced that meet strict data quality requirements during the processing of 516,000+ observations and 881,000+ images.
3. Mutual Benefit
The platform conducts scientific education, increases community awareness, and creates larger databases. Both science and the community benefit: users learn about nature while collecting valuable scientific data.
4. Open Access
Data is publicly available, methodology is transparent, and services are free. Data collected by the platform serves as a useful information source for scientific work and contributes to biodiversity monitoring.
Benefits of Citizen Science
Citizen science projects offer numerous advantages from a scientific perspective. Through thousands of volunteer data collectors, larger amounts of data can be gathered, broader geographic and temporal coverage can be achieved, while being more cost-effective than professional research and enabling real-time monitoring.
From a social perspective, citizen science results in community learning and increased scientific literacy. It increases environmental awareness and supports nature conservation, while creating community cohesion through collaboration for common goals. This democratic approach to science enables everyone to contribute to the scientific process.
Summary
izeltlabuak.hu is a successful citizen science project that demonstrates how to combine community participation and scientific quality. The platform helps in understanding the Hungarian arthropod world while collecting valuable scientific data and conducting education. This approach not only serves the advancement of science but also the increase of society's scientific literacy.
