Toolkit for citizen science

As part of the development of the National Action Plan on Open Government (NAP), U.S. President Barack Obama (2009–2017) took substantial steps to increase citizen participation, collaboration, and transparency in government. While his first action plan included initiatives along these lines, it was in the second plan (2013) that he called for the creation of an interagency group to design and develop an Open Innovation Toolkit for federal agencies. This toolkit was to include best practices, training, policies, and guidance on authorities related to open innovation. The plan also included incentives such as prizes, crowdsourcing, and citizen science initiatives. In 2014, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) began developing the project.

The Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit, available at CitizenScience.gov, was developed with the support and collaboration of more than 25 U.S. federal agencies. The main sponsoring organizations include:

• U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)
• White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)
• Federal Community of Practice for Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science (CCS)
• GSA’s Open Opportunities Program

When developing the second National Action Plan (NAP), the Federal Government aimed to gather input from the general public in the Administration’s policymaking process. It was from this intention that the idea to develop the Citizen Science Toolkit was born.

The project was conceived as a collaborative and community-building activity in itself, with the goal of fostering a culture of innovation, learning, sharing, and action within the federal citizen science community, also incorporating crowdsourcing.

Organizaciones de la sociedad civil, la academia y el sector privado.

Creation of the interagency group for the design and development of the Open Innovation Toolkit.

Challenge.gov Project: hosted over 300 crowdsourcing competitions with the participation of more than 50 federal agencies and departments, engaging citizens in solving complex problems to help agencies fulfill their missions.

Citizen Science: enables the public to make critical contributions in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by collecting, analyzing, and sharing a wide range of data. One example is the participation of the amateur astronomy community in a NASA project to dramatically increase the number of asteroid observations.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also expanded its citizen science activities by leveraging crowdsourcing to monitor water quality.

Another example was led by the independent National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which expanded its citizen archivist crowdsourcing projects to make records more accessible online, including subtitling historical films and transcribing other federal records by the public.

The information sources consulted online are not entirely clear regarding the continuity of all initiatives after the end of President Barack Obama’s term. However, it is evident that the strategy of having these programs led by stable public agencies allowed citizen science to become a lasting presence in the form of ongoing programs.

For example, in the case of the National Archives and Records Administration project, the Citizen Archivist Program remains active and continues to welcome participation: https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist.

The same applies to the Nature’s Notebook program (https://www.usanpn.org/nn/campaigns) and the other initiatives mentioned, except for the USAID program, whose last post dates back to 2012.

Having prioritized the goal of increasing citizen participation, collaboration, and transparency in government, it is worth noting that in just two years, more than 10 million users submitted over 270,000 petitions on a wide range of topics.

The following successful projects illustrate the diversity of possible applications of citizen science and crowdsourcing:

Citizen Archivist Dashboard (NARA): the National Archives and Records Administration coordinated the tagging and transcription of archival records through crowdsourcing. Over 170,000 volunteers participated, indexing 132 million names from the 1940 Census in just five months.

Measuring Broadband America (FCC): the Federal Communications Commission engaged 2 million volunteers who provided data on their internet speeds. This data was used by the FCC to create a national broadband map that reveals digital divides.

Nature’s Notebook (USGS, NSF): volunteers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Science Foundation recorded over 1 million observations of plants and animals, data that scientists use to analyze environmental change.

Did You Feel It? (USGS): this program has allowed more than 3 million people worldwide to share their experiences during and immediately after earthquakes. The information supports rapid damage assessments and scientific research, especially in areas lacking dense sensor networks.

La aplicación móvil mPING (NOAA): this app has collected over 600,000 ground-based weather observations that help validate meteorological models.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) anonymized and opened its loan guarantee data to volunteer mappers, who mapped 10,000 data points in just 16 hours—far surpassing the 60 hours estimated by officials.

Air Sensor Toolbox (EPA): through training workshops, scientific partnerships, technology assessments, and a scientific equipment loan program, the Environmental Protection Agency empowered communities to monitor and report on local air pollution.

• Designing a Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing Toolkit for the Federal Government: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/12/02/designing-citizen-science-and-crowdsourcing-toolkit-federal-government
• Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit: https://www.citizenscience.gov/toolkit/#
• About the Toolkit:  https://www.citizenscience.gov/toolkit/about/#