About CS Track project
The aim of CS Track is to broaden our knowledge about Citizen Science and the impact Citizen Science activities can have. CS Track will do this by investigating a large and diverse set of Citizen Science activities, disseminating good practices and formulating knowledge-based policy recommendations in order to maximise the potential benefit of Citizen Science activities on individual citizens, organisations, and society at large.
Main Outputs
Available mid 2021
First Version of Citizen Science Community Platform
This first version of the platform will provide initial data analysis, the first eMagazine and the plan for supporting the community of interest around CS Track.
Available mid 2021
First Version of Citizen Science State of the art report
This is very much a descriptive output of the conceptual approach, and the work being done. It includes a first version of the database of European CS projects which can be linked to the community platform. It also includes the conceptual model for the web-based analytics tools to be used along with the specification of the web-based tools and methods.
Available mid 2021
Analysis of Citizen Science practice, First Results
This first version of the platform will provide initial data analysis, the first eMagazine and the plan for supporting the community of interest around CS Track.
Available end 2021
Set of analytic tools
An open source archive containing analytics software (in languages such as R and Python) and visualization tools for extracting information from Citizen Science related documents on websites and in social media together with documentation (installation, APIs). Applications of the analytics tools will be made available to non-programmers on the multi-lingual community platform.
Available early 2022
Analysis of Citizen Science practice
This output develops the analysis further of what constitutes success in citizen science projects and will include a model to identify background factors associated with the CS activity. It will elaborate on the research questions that are being asked and the recommendations available.
Available end 2022
Second Version of Citizen Science Community Platform
This final version of the platform will provide the complete data analysis. It will also include training resources to read our data that can be used by the CS community to enhance their skills and competences in the interpretation of data emerging from CS activities.
Available end 2022
Analysis of Citizen Science practice & recommendations
This output concludes the analysis of what constitutes success in citizen science projects. It includes the policy recommendations for using CS Track Results as well as an elaboration of issues to do with accreditation.
Available end 2022
Second version of Citizen Science State of the art report
This final version of the report describes the knowledge gained through the project about the nature and potential of CS activities and their impact. It includes the final versions of the data sets produced from the selected CS activities which will be connected with the online community as well as the final results of the web analysis.
Partners Info & Locatioin
MOFET Institute
MOFET is responsible for project management and coordination, and chairing the Project’s Management Board. They also lead all tasks located in Israel and support exploitation planning and activation of the CS Track community.
More info.
Rhine-Ruhr Institute for Applied Systeminnovation
RIAS is responsible for the integration of web-based analytics (conceptually and technically), the selection and inclusion of German Activities / Initiatives as well as being responsible for the definition of interfaces for the platform. They are also responsible for data analytics on web-based activity data of the selected activities.
More info.
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
URJC is responsible for defining and creating the CS Track eMagazine. They will also distribute the Analysis of Citizen Science practice and other outputs as well as policy recommendations and other results through the community platform. Furthermore, they will contribute to dissemination and exploitation planning and activation of the project community.
More info.
Wissenschaftsladen Wien
WLW lead the work on creating a conceptual and theoretical framework for CS Track as well as heading the Citizen Science Committee (CSC) and being responsible for the coordination of all aspects of citizen science in the project. They will contribute to the collection, selection and surveying of citizen science activities generally as well as specifically in the case of Austria.
More info.
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
UPF lead on the work to explore citizen science activities ensuring that the selection is done according to the criteria established through the work led by WLW. They will also contribute to all tasks where data collection and qualitative analysis is done. They will also support the selection and analysis of Citizen Science activities in Spain and contribute to the web-based analytics requirement analysis.
More info.
University of Jyväskylä
JYU will lead on the quantitative data collection & analysis, accreditation discussion paper and policy recommendations. They are also responsible for implementing a new set of measures and data collection tools as well as providing insight into citizen science activities in Finland.
More info.
ATiT
ATiT are responsible for ensuring project impact as well as working closely with URJC on the support to the citizen science community. They are responsible for ensuring effective communication channels for the project team from the outset and for making sure the outcomes are effectively disseminated to the wider citizen science community.
More info.
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas
FORTH will contribute to the identification of individual and social indicators and criteria on which to base analytics as well as monitoring and studying citizen science activities in Greece. They are also the Ethics & Gender Coordinator, assisting the Project Management Board in these areas.
More info.
Wissenschaft im Dialog
WiD will be most deeply involved in the exploration and information gathering on citizen science activities and in supporting the community web platform. WiD will contribute to the communication activities of the project and create content for the eMagazine. WiD will also contribute to researching citizen science activities, particularly in Germany.
More info.
Progress
December 2019 to February 2020
Following a really successful kick-off meeting held in Leuven in December 2019, each of the work package leaders have been busy getting started on their tasks. In WP1, coordinated by WLW, partners are identifying CS networks, portals, and project databases on the one hand, and funding schemes and policies pertaining to citizen science on the other, to get a first overview of the global citizen science landscape. UPF who lead WP2 have been organising regular meetings with partners to get their work on selecting citizen science activities for analysis started as well as figuring out the requirements of our data base. RIAS who lead WP3 have been working on establishing a privacy policy for information from publicly available resources while JYU who lead WP4 have created the first draft of their questionnaire which will be used for gathering information about citizen science activities. WP5 leader URJC and WP6 leader ATiT have been working closely to meet the first project milestone, that of launching the project as well as taking stock of the current channels and resources available for communication and dissemination within the wider European Citizen Science environment. For project coordinators, MOFET, launching the management structure and protocols has been their main focus as well as guiding the project partners during this early stage. Leading WP8, and working in close collaboration with FORTH (coordinators of the Ethics and Gender subject in the project), they have also been working on the ethical and data management planning for CS Track.
Contact Us
All enquiries about our work and outputs are most welcome. Please use the following email address if you would like to contact us and we will make sure that your enquiry is directed to the most relevant CS Track partner.