DIP: Sustaining ecological communities through citizen science and online collaboration

这个项目小组正在从几个方面调查民间科学家之间的相互作用，这些科学家相互之间以及与专业人员之间的相互作用。这些互动发生的网络学习环境是建立在现有的网络基础设施——国际生物信息系统之上的，PI团队正在加强该基础设施，以支持协作生态系统建模。由此产生的基于协作模型的在线学习系统使公民科学家能够进行实地观察，讨论和表示数据，并协作生成土地利用资源管理的模型和建议。研究问题集中在公民科学家如何参与科学实践，如何使用模型来分享理解，如何与专业人士合作，以及如何使用代表性工具来解释他们的观察结果。其他问题涉及这些工具在土地使用管理背景下的使用，以及参与这个基于协作模式的学习社区所产生的集体和个人知识的性质。该项目以学习型科学家、生态学家和计算机/信息科学家之间的合作为特色，并将公民科学与网络学习和社交网络相结合。进一步促进其知识价值的是它作为第一个鼓励在区域范围内建模实践的公民科学项目之一的地位。通过促进更好地理解网络工具如何有助于在非正式环境中与成人学习者一起学习学科知识和科学实践，可以感受到该项目的更广泛影响。该项目还使公民能够在当地环境管理中发挥作用；它正在与一个全州范围的自然学家硕士项目合作，通过该项目，鼓励服务不足的群体参与科学学习和资源管理。最后，随着项目的继续，它提供了一个机会，为全国其他州的自然主义大师项目提供了一个典范。

This project team is investigating the interaction among citizen scientists working both with each other and with professionals, along several dimensions. The cyberlearning environment in which these interactions takes place is built on an existing cyberinfrastructure, the International Biological Information System, that the PI team is enhancing to support collaborative ecosystem modeling. The resultant online, collaborative model-based learning system enables citizen scientists to make field observations, discuss and represent data, and collaboratively generate models and recommendations for land use resource management. Research questions center on how citizen scientists engage in scientific practice, use models to share understandings, work with professionals, and use representational tools to interpret their observations. Additional questions address the use of these tools in the context of land use management and the nature of collective and individual knowledge that results from participation in this collaborative model-based learning community. The project features collaboration among learning scientists, ecologists, and computer/information scientists, and merges citizen science with cyberlearning and social networking. Further contributing to its intellectual merit is its position as one of the first citizen science projects to encourage modeling practices on a regional scale. The broader impacts of this project are being felt by its promotion of a better understanding of how cyber-enabled tools can contribute to learning disciplinary knowledge and scientific practices in informal settings with adult learners. The project is also enabling citizens to play a role in locally based environmental management; and it is working with a statewide master naturalist program through which the participation of underserved groups in science learning and resource management is encouraged. Finally, as the project continues, it offers the opportunity to serve as a model for other statewide master naturalist programs that exist across the country.