In this section, we have answered a set of questions about citizen science, which are frequently coming up. The questions were — How can volunteers produce high-quality data? Why do people participate in citizen science? Who participates in citizen science? And What do they get in return for their effort? These questions are, of course, linked. We can now see that because people are motivated to help a scientific effort and are frequently holding higher education, they pay attention to how they collect data. This, in turn, explains the high quality of the resulting data. 
These questions are important for different citizen science projects, and within each project, the answers will be different. There can be citizen science projects that are aimed at recruiting volunteers with special expertise — in the same way, that Doctors without Borders seek out volunteers who are medical experts. In such cases, the answers to questions about inclusiveness and diversity will be limited to the pool of available participants and structural inequalities might mean skewed participation. This should not lead to an immediate critique of the project — it needs to be examined holistically, including the benefits from the project to the wider population.

Last modified: Thursday, 17 June 2021, 12:45 PM