Citizen Science and Democracy: Participation with a Purpose

Eileen Scanlon

and Christothea Herodotou

Institute of Educational Technology, Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K.

Keywords: Informal Learning, Participation, Inclusion, Democratisation of Research.

Abstract: In this paper we discuss the changing role of citizen science in research, teaching, and learning. This change

is being brought about by the development of a wider perspective on the potential purposes of participation

in citizen science both for scientists and for members of the public. In this paper we review frameworks for

participation, discuss benefits of participation and consider whether we can use new models of citizen science

to democratise research. Citizen science is best understood as a democratic endeavour. The more opportunities

for learning, the more people benefit, the more challenging the task for educators, the more varied the media

and tools developed to support this purpose. Educators have extended the range of opportunities for learning

to include not just formal settings, but informal ones. This position paper discusses the development of tools

to support the connections between formal and informal learning settings and in particular the potential of

tools to support citizen science, as a vehicle for learning both about science and about the conduct of research.

1 INTRODUCTION

Citizen science is a relatively new activity which is

becoming more and more popular. Its growth has

been accelerating due to the relative ease with which

the participation of citizens in scientific studies has

been greatly increased by the possibility of taking part

in online studies e.g. Curtis (2018), in varied

capacities and beyond merely sharing their data (e.g.

collecting data, analysing data, co-defining research

focus). However, there are a number of issues that are

emerging as a consequence of this growth in

participation. These include considerations of equity,

which in turn is altering the nature of participation,

and the benefits of participation to be reconsidered

2 CONTEXT

2.1 Learning

So often we engage in trying to understand what

people have learned when they engage in an activity

as part of a formal learning opportunity. However, it

is obvious that these opportunities have changed. No

longer do learners need to be physically co-located

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1180-682X

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0980-1632

with instructors, or even with other learners. No

longer do we see learners as being required to be part

of a formal accredited program of study.

In the past, these opportunities for learning were

often examined as discrete lessons taking place in

classrooms. However, the opportunities for learning

have become more widespread and often exist in

many different forms. In recent years, new learning

opportunities in relation to collaboration, inquiry and

location-based learning have emerged as practical

possibilities. The concept of learning journey

supported by technology, in the sense that learners

may be engaged in moving between different settings,

is a powerful one.

While we might wish to ensure that learners

engage enthusiastically with science and that they are

satisfied with their participation in science activities

and see learning as fun and enjoyable, this is not

automatically a benefit of informal settings. It is also

difficult to track learning in these settings.

Going forward, we need to address the challenges

of evidencing learning in informal settings, or

connecting learning across settings, and ensuring that

this learning is enjoyable and engaging. The concept

of learning journey supported by technology, in the

sense that learners may be engaged in moving

between different settings is appropriate, and in the

492

Scanlon, E. and Herodotou, C.

Citizen Science and Democracy: Participation with a Purpose.

DOI: 10.5220/0013350800003932

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2025) - Volume 1, pages 492-499

ISBN: 978-989-758-746-7; ISSN: 2184-5026

sense that multiple learning experiences, rather than

learning from isolated incidents, are important.

We are particularly interested in the ways in

which technology tools can support these new

learning journeys, and particularly the prospects for

citizen science. Citizen science is an interesting

approach which serves multiple purposes and can

play an important part in learning journeys. One

purpose is that, by becoming involved in citizen

science projects, members of the public can become

volunteers to a wide range of activities which

contribute to the development of science. As such

they are a valuable resource. We are interested in the

other potential benefits from this activity, of using the

participation in such activities to help participants

learn science and learn about science.

Aristeidou et al. (2017) provides a review of

platforms produced for online citizen science.

Masters et al. (2016) reviewing on-line citizen

science activities notes that because new technologies

allow for much higher levels of participation,

collaboration, and interaction in citizen science, the

form that these take can be important.

In their paper Masters et al. conduct a discussion

which:

“explores what online citizen science

projects reveal about the ‘democratisation’

of science and distributed engagement with

authentic research. Analysing the wider

appeal of these projects as well as their

potential for informal science learning and

creating communities of practice, […] asks

whether ‘citizen’ and ‘researcher’ will ever

be on equal footing.” [p. 1]

So, in our exploration we have developed tools to

support this activity of participation in science, and

we consider that the tools involved need to be

considered also from the perspective of technology

enhanced learning.

“.... Technology-enhanced learning consists

of much more than a set of research-

informed products. It is a complex system,

which includes communities, technologies

and practices that are informed by pedagogy

(the theory and practice of teaching,

learning and assessment)” (Scanlon et al.

2013).

The potential learning environments to be studied

are complex, and as described in the reference quoted

above, we appreciate that the uptake of technology-

enhanced learning tools is influenced by ‘persistent

intent’ evident in the description of the development

of the tool provided in the next section.

3 THE TOOL nQuire

The tool we developed has been through a 15-year

development cycle. In its first iteration, we produced

a support for inquiry learning in formal school

settings. Over the years, we have deployed it in

citizen science settings and in a sequence of design-

based research experiments improved its usability

and functionality. See e.g. Aristeidou, Scanlon &

Sharples (2021), Herodotou et al., (2018).

We designed a tool to help people to engage in

citizen science activities and in doing so learn about

how research is done. They can do that by taking part

in studies set by others, receive feedback, data

visualisations, peer learning, as well as set up their

own studies through an authoring functionality. It is

free to use and provides support from scientists. See

Scanlon & Herodotou (2024) for more details. nQuire

can be accessed via www.nquire.org.uk.

We want to help people to start thinking critically

and scientifically, to understand and assess

information around them, change their attitudes to

science, and develop scientific literacy. We designed

the tool to help people to learn. Within this overall

ambition we can see potential for learning science,

but also learning about how research is done. In the

next sections, we present example citizen science

projects hosted on nQuire.

3.1 Case Study: Forest 404

The Forest 404 study (or as we called an exploration

using nQuire a ‘mission’) was a collaboration

between the BBC Radio 4, the University of Bristol,

the University of Exeter, and the Open University.

The aim of the investigation was to understand how

people feel when listening to various sounds. These

included the sounds of nature such as wind in the

trees, birds singing, or waves washing on to the

beach, in addition to poems or stories about nature.

The nQuire mission was structured around several

sections each one asking participants to reflect on a

listening experience. The listening experience was

enabled by audio files uploaded to the mission.

Follow-up questions such as How pleasant do you

find the experience of listening to this sound? Do you

find this sound boring or exciting? were as

Questions were answered by using sliders and

multiple-choice items. People who participated could

slide left or right to indicate their agreement with

statements. Participants were asked about personal

information such as age and gender.

Citizen Science and Democracy: Participation with a Purpose

493

Figure 1: The Forest 404 Experiment.

The motivation behind the mission was to enable

scientific understanding of the therapeutic potential

of nature on wellbeing. 7,596 people took part in the

study, mainly from the South-East, South -West of

the UK and London. The mission brief included the

following.

“.... A large body of evidence shows that

spending time in natural environments can

have positive effects on people’s wellbeing.

But we know very little about the importance

of sound in this relationship. How might

listening to birdsong or waves lapping on

the beach help people who are stressed or

tired? The effects won’t be the same for

everyone, so we want as many people as

possible to take part and help us uncover

what works and why.” Lead researcher from

Exeter University

Findings from the study showed that people’s

responses to the mission were overwhelmingly

positive, and in some cases, they reported on

behaviour changes after taking part in the Forest 404

experience. One participant explained “My ears seem

more attuned to nature now. On my morning dog walk

I could hear nothing but birdsong, I don’t think this is

any different than before I think I’ve just noticed it

now.”

Findings from the study were published by

Smalley et al. so participants had the incentive of

contributing to the development of scientist’s

understanding of an important topic.

What seemed to be important with engagement

with the mission was the involvement of the media in

this case the British Broadcasting Company (BBC)

for the associated radio broadcasts. The connection

between the development of the nQuire tool and its

redesign to cope with participation at scale was due

to a partnership between the OU and the broadcaster

and this has had significance in determining public

engagement with some of the larger scale missions or

investigations.

3.2 OU Pollinator Watch

OU staff launched a mission to explore the topic of

pollinators with a view also to help people learn. It

was titled Pollinator watch and it was promoted in the

popular BBC2 TV series Springwatch. It is an

example of the many citizen science projects related

to the theme of sustainability. The potential for citizen

science projects to make a contribution in this area

has been recognised. (See e.g. Austen et al., 2024)

Figure 2: OU Pollinator Watch.

The interest of OU scientists in biodiversity

focussed on insect pollinators which are essential, and

under threat and a team was brought together to

design a mission. The aim of the mission was to help

people to learn about different types of pollinators. By

people sharing observations and uploading

photographs, data were collected on where pollinators

were seen in the UK:

The mission brief included the following statement:

“We designed this mission to help you learn

more about insect pollinators and the

benefits they bring; benefits that are largely

taken for granted. Whilst observing current

Government guidance on restricted

movement, social distancing and washing

your hands as soon as you get home, we

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would like you to spend some time in your

outdoor spaces looking for insect

pollinators. Anyone can take part whether

you have a small window-box, balcony, or

garden.

We are asking you to share your

observations or upload photographs of the

insect pollinators you see and answer some

questions. In doing so, you will help us

understand which pollinators are commonly

observed and where, as well as how much

we know about these important species. This

mission will help you learn about different

types of pollinating insects, why they are

important and why they need our help.”

This mission attracted contributions from 7,824

participants and the summary of findings reported

that observations of pollinators were submitted from

all across the UK, from 123 of the 124 postcode areas.

Bumblebees were the most common. In terms of

participants, it was interesting that there was a high

level of engagement amongst dedicated wildlife

watchers. However, researchers found that 19.2% of

participants wouldn’t normally observe or identify

pollinators and 10.9% were not previously aware of

the threats they faced.

(https://nquire.org.uk/mission/oupollinatorwatch/fin

dings)

4 DISCUSSION

4.1 Case Studies

There is much activity around citizen science as is

indicated above and much is written about extending

the model of participation beyond merely data

collection. The two examples we have chosen to

illustrate above provide the opportunity to consider

what is meant by participation and what the benefits

of these activities are. In each case, there is a benefit

to the scientists of specific data on interesting topics,

in the case of Forest 404 an investigation into the

impact of sound leading to a publication. In the case

of OU Pollinator watch, good quality information on

insect pollinators in the UK with representation of the

whole country, but even more is the intent of the

scientists to develop an activity that engaged the

volunteers, providing opportunities to develop skills

in observation but also to learn about what makes a

difference to the societal problem of decrease in

insect pollinators and what behaviours might have

significant impact. This is in the nature of a call to

action around environmental issues. Both these

examples therefore give a purpose to the activity

beyond data collection opportunities for scientists

presented by public engagement events in the media

combined with citizens science activity.

4.2 The Different Models of

Participation

The notion of a ladder of participation was first

introduced by Arnstein (1969) and in recent years has

been elaborated on by Haklay et al. (2021). However,

there are other issues to be unpacked about the nature

of participation in citizen science. A stated aim of our

nQuire development has been to extend the

possibilities for democracy in research (Herodotou,

Kenny& Scanlon, 2024) and this is predicated on the

support that our platform can give for citizens to own

their investigations and perhaps even set them up.

Yet, participation as creation of research is, at

least at the moment, rather uncommon and

challenging for participants even to consider

(Herodotou et al., 2022). Yet, some participants

would be interested in being supported to do so,

should there is support and time availability (ibid).

There are interesting examples of how such hurdles

can be overcome. For example, Sharma et al. (2022)

specifically discusses online citizen science issues of

species identification through consensus building

identified ways of improving accuracy and consensus

building on identification tasks among volunteers.

The European Commission (EC 2020) points out

that citizen science “has the potential to improve

research and its outcomes and reinforce societal trust

in science” and increase “science literacy and

confidence of the public in research”.

There are voices in citizen science echoing this

desire and some bold attempts to operationalize the

support. But there are also additional considerations.

The democracy movement in citizen science has not

won over all scientists involved in citizen science

projects who query whether members of the general

public should be encouraged or allowed to participate

in different ways from the traditional role of data

collector.

Resnik (2019) (p.1) gives an interesting

commentary on this expansion of types of

participation discussing the ethical implications of the

mixture of roles:

“Citizen involvement in research raises

novel ethical issues for human studies,

because individuals have traditionally

occupied the role of researcher or subject,

Citizen Science and Democracy: Participation with a Purpose

495

but not at the same time. The confluence of

these two different roles in the same person

poses challenges for investigators and

oversight committees because legal rules

and ethical guidelines focus on protecting

the rights and welfare of human subjects and

do not address issues that fall outside this

domain, such as study design, data quality

and integrity, reporting misconduct,

authorship, or publication.”

It is also not appropriate to assume that ideas of

co-design or co-construction or participation are

limited only to the world of citizen science, or any

other type of citizen inquiry.

Heiss et al. (2017) (p.21) describes how:

"the discussion has moved away from a

classical “public understanding of science”

approach, aiming at transferring knowledge

about scientific processes to the public, to a

“science in society” approach (Felt et al.

2013)"

This links to discussions around knowledge

production as a mode two activity which means that:

“… that knowledge is no longer produced

exclusively in scientific institutions, but in

transdisciplinary collaborations, which aim

to solve existing practical problems. Such

transdisciplinary collab orations may not

only involve interactions between scientific

disciplines, but also between scientific and

non-scientific actors (Hurni and Wiesmann

2014). The concept of “transformative

science” builds on these observations and

argues that such transdisciplinary

collaborations become more important in

modern societies, which are characterized

by the increasing penetration of scientific

results and processes within society. In

order to ensure the external legitimacy of

institutionalized scientific research,

scientific actors have to open up to societal

actors and actively involve them.” (p. 21)

Outside of the specific research practices of

citizen science, there are paradigm shifts in research

design in the social science more generally. In

medicine, in social research and in the practices of

design-based research there are also ways of working

aligned with more co-production of research.

Palmer and colleagues (2019, p.247) writing

about medical research capture this shift in the

zeitgeist as follows:

“Participatory methods increasingly used in

healthcare improvement coalesce around

the concept of coproduction, and related

practices of co-creation, co-design and co-

innovation. These participatory methods

have become the new Zeitgeist—the spirit of

our times in quality improvement. The

rationale for this new spirit of participation

relates to voice and engagement (those with

lived experience should be engaged in

processes of development, redesign and

improvements), empowerment (engagement

in codesign and coproduction has positive

individual and societal benefits) and

advancement (quality of life and other health

outcomes and experiences of services for

everyone involved should improve as a

result.”

Roche et al, in a 2020 review of citizen science

progress in this area has a clear prescription of what

needs to be done in terms of practices and that is:

“to align educational learning outcomes

with citizen science project goals at the

planning stage of the project using co-

creation approaches to ensure issues of

accessibility and inclusivity are paramount

throughout the design and implementation

of every project. Only then can citizen

science realise its true potential to empower

citizens to take ownership of their own

science education and learning.” (p.1)

Jenkins (2011) points out the increased

possibilities in citizen science for making students see

science as relevant to their own lives, and with Archer

et al. (2015) sees the possibility of increasing the

science capital, an important potential pathway to

change. However, Hall (2024) points out the paradox

between scientists aiming for science discovery and

aiming for publishing relatively little from citizen

science studies.

“Citizen science yields increased scientific

capacity in exchange for science literacy

and promises of a more responsive science

to society’s needs. Yet, citizen science

projects are criticized for producing few

scientific outputs and having exploitative

relationships with the citizens who

participate” [p.1527]

They propose a model of engagement for citizen

science to result in benefits for citizens and scientists

alike relating to a case study of citizen involvement

on a hydrology project. Heywood (2016) like others

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considers that there is a need for better cooperation

between scientists and the public.

While participation in citizen science activities

can bring benefits to involved stakeholders, it should

be noted that the type and magnitude of these benefits

depends on the design of projects and in particular

how volunteers are allowed to engage with them.

Distinct learning benefits were recorded for youth

volunteers depending on whether they were asked to

record biodiversity - which was associated with

enhanced observation skills or identifying species -

which was related to enhanced sharing of knowledge

and a desire to become a scientist (Herodotou et al.,

2024). In addition, certain types of participation may

be less or more accessible to volunteers than others,

promoting inequalities in access and participation

(DeWitt, & Archer, 2017). Widening participation

has been an issue of concern with strategies such as

the design of projects relevant to volunteers,

improvements in the accessibility of a project and

effective support by others been proposed as

mitigation strategies (Vogt et al., 2016). For example,

online citizen science platforms such as iNaturalist

are viewed as “opening the door to science” as they

enable diverse participation of youth including those

with no prior science experience and interest

(Herodotou et al., 2024).

5 CONCLUSIONS

The endeavour in which we are engaged is to explore

ways in which our tools can contribute to improving

the public’s understanding of science and how

scientific knowledge develops.

Part of this endeavour is how best to engage

individuals and communities with limited or no

research expertise and interest in scientific

investigations with the process of designing and

implementing a scientific investigation. With our

research work’s origins in personal inquiry learning

in schools, bringing together approaches to

developing understanding of science concepts and

processes, this continuing research work on citizen

science was started with a recognition of the

possibilities of combining inquiry learning with

citizen science and collaboration. Harnessing these

components could provide more opportunities for

participants’ learning from engaging with citizen

science.

With many nQuire ‘missions’ completed (69 to

date), we have developed a useable tool, and we have

developed the possibility of making progress on the

democratisation of the research process by enabling

enhanced levels of participation and by turning

volunteers into co-researchers.

Like others we have begun to experiment with

using AI tools, to speed up and improve the potential

data analysis of missions with many participants as

reflected in the recent systematic reviews of the

potential of Generative AI in learning settings e.g.,

Bond et al. (2024). We are also working on versions

of the tool that would support projects exploring

design thinking, youth mental health, eco-anxiety,

and policy prioritization in funded research e.g.

(https://learn.nquire.org.uk/signin.)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our thanks are due to the participants in all our citizen

science investigations and the funders who have

contributed to the development of the platform

nQuire. We would also like to acknowledge the

colleagues who have contributed over the years

including Maria Aristeidou, Mike Sharples, and

Kevin McLeod and his team.

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