Summary (2 minutes)

As illustrated in this section, there are many definitions of citizen science – since citizen science activities and practices are found in different scientific disciplines – and there are also some uncertainties about exactly what the terms that are being used mean in a specific context. Different terms serve different goals and are appropriate for different audiences; it is advisable to check what the people running and involved in a citizen science project exactly mean.

In this section, we have introduced terms such as crowdsourcing, volunteer computing, participatory sensing, and several terms using the word science: DIY science, community science, citizen cyberscience, and civic science.

There are many ways to refer to participants, from citizen scientists (often used) to volunteers or amateurs. In addition, depending on the level or degree of participation of participants in citizen science projects (or, in other words, on the relationship between scientists and participants), projects can be classified in one way or another. For this, we have looked at different typologies and learned that, since most citizen science projects fall within “contributory projects”, a way of sub-categorising them makes sense.

We have also learned that typologies and classifications can overlap and the same activity can be called differently depending on what we want to emphasise. In addition, we have shortly introduced one of the most discussed topics in research and innovation, the wider concept of open science, and seen how it intersects with citizen science.