Iterative stakeholder engagement
Good design for learning is an iterative process, and it is necessary to design evaluation, reflection, and revision into the design process. Whilst there are few evaluation and iteration tools specific to citizen science - or work across all citizen science projects - the evaluation guide created by Tina Phillips and colleagues at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a valuable resource (Phillips et al, 2014), and principles from design thinking can apply.
Design thinking emphasises design that is more user-centred (Norman, 2013) and learner-centred, with the needs and aspirations of users paramount, and underpinned by a process of rapid prototyping to arrive at useful and usable services. By engaging stakeholders throughout the design process helps operationalise or embed the strategies to “know the audience” and “design for diversity”, which we have already seen are important for learning outcomes into citizen science projects.
Example: eBird harnesses numerous information technologies to engage a global network of birders to report their bird observations to a centralized database. Anyone, anywhere, and at any time can submit observations via the Internet, providing scientists, researchers, and amateur naturalists with data about bird distribution and abundance over time and space.
eBird’s development is focused on building tools that appeal to and serve members of the birding community e.g. keeping track of their observations, viewing their personal bird lists, and comparing their observations with others (Wood et al, 2011). This focus on high-level users means that the majority of data are submitted by committed, repeat users who understand best practice, which helps to maintain high data quality. To ensure relevance at local scales, local partners manage regional eBird portals, who provide the appropriate expertise, promotion, and project ownership to better engage local audiences. Each eBird portal is customizable to address local audience needs through specially tailored application functionality, content, and language preferences (e.g., local common names for every species for each country). Each portal is fully integrated within the eBird database and application infrastructure so that data can be shared and analyzed freely across both political and geographic boundaries.