April 20th, 2016 | RESEARCH
The participation of non-professionally trained people in so-called citizen science (CS) projects is a much discussed topic at the moment. Frequently, however, the contribution of citizens is limited to only a few narrow tasks. Focusing on an initiative dedicated to the study of the human microbiome, this paper describes such a case where citizen participation is limited to the provision of funding, samples, and personal data. Researchers opted for a crowdsourced approaches because other forms of funding and recruitment did not seem feasible. We argue that despite the narrow understanding of participation in the context of some CS projects, they can address some of the democratic concerns related to scientific knowledge creation. For example, CS and crowdsourcing can help to foster dialogue between researchers and publics, and increase the influence of citizens on research agenda setting.
Document
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Team Members
Lorenzo Del Savio, Author, Christian-Albrechts-UniversityBarbara Prainsack, Author, King's College London
Alena Buxy, Author, Christian-Albrechts-University
Citation
Identifier Type: ISSN
Identifier: 1824-2049
Publication: Journal of Science Communication
Volume: 15
Number: 3
Related URLs
Tags
Audience: General Public | Scientists
Discipline: Health and medicine
Resource Type: Peer-reviewed article | Research Products
Environment Type: Citizen Science Programs | Public Programs