A Symposium and Workshop to Recommend Biodiversity Informatics Best Practices for Citizen Science Programs, October 27-31, 2014, Jonkoping, Sweden

马萨诸塞大学波士顿分校获得一笔赠款，用于支持一个研讨会和研讨会，该研讨会和研讨会将生物多样性科学家、公民科学项目负责人和生物多样性信息科学家聚集在一起，审查项目的案例研究，并提出基于科学和信息学标准的最佳实践。WORSHOP将与生物多样性信息标准分类数据库工作组(TDWG)的年度会议一起在瑞典的约克平举行。公民科学项目，如CitiSci.org、eBird和Reef，提供了独特而有价值的物种发生记录，因为它们可以动员公民以科学家单独无法收集的方式收集数据。公民科学可以被认为是一种新的工具，它已经展示了它提供重要生物多样性数据的能力。然而，吸引和培训人们参与并收集有用的科学数据之间的权衡并没有得到很好的理解。一些项目是在教育和外联框架内制定的，目的只是让参与者参与科学活动并向他们提供信息，而另一些项目则需要更高程度的技能和决心来汇编复杂的科学观测资料。专题讨论会/讲习班产生的文件提供了关于招聘、吸引和培训参与者之间的紧张关系以及确保收集的数据具有很高价值的指导和最佳做法。此外，讲习班还就如何改进和量化数据质量提供了指导，因为目前还没有校准这种我们称为公民科学的新仪器的既定程序。专题讨论会/讲习班以及由此产生的论文突出了公民科学活动在生物多样性科学中的重要性，并阐明了生物多样性信息学新标准的必要性。这项工作起草了建议，以满足公民科学生物多样性数据的独特需求，例如需要纳入通用名称标准，以及关于调查方法和分析技术的元数据，以促进公民科学计划中的数据重新使用。公民科学方案越来越多地被用于正式的K-16和非正式的科学教育环境，扩大了人们从事正宗科学的机会，并提高了科学素养和对当地环境问题的认识。由此产生的建议和最佳做法将与新的公民科学联盟组织及其最近成立的技术委员会分享。这些信息可以指导公民科学项目的设计者和项目经理，他们希望提高他们产生的数据的科学质量。我们的活动启动了生物多样性信息标准(TWDG)和公民科学联盟之间的合作伙伴关系，可以支持公民科学的生物多样性标准制定。

The University of Massachussets Boston is awarded a grant to support a symposium and workshop to bring together biodiversity scientists, citizen science project leaders, and biodiversity information scientists to review case studies of programs and propose best practices based on science and informatics standards. The worshop will be held in Jönköping, Sweden together with the annual meeting of Biodiversity Information Standards Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG). Citizen science projects, such as CitiSci.org, eBird, and REEF, provide unique and valuable species occurrence records because they can mobilize citizens to collect data in ways that scientists, alone, cannot. Citizen Science can be thought of as a new kind of instrument that has demonstrated its ability to provide important biodiversity data. However, the tradeoffs between engaging and training people to participate and collecting useful scientific data are not well understood. Some projects, developed in an education and outreach framework, aim to simply engage and inform participants in science activities, while others demand a much higher degree of skill and commitment to compile scientifically sophisticated observations. The paper resulting from the symposium/workshop provides guidance and best practice about the tensions between recruiting, engaging, and training participants and ensuring a high value of the data collected. In addition, the workshop provides guidance about how to improve and quantify data quality, as there are no established procedures for calibrating this new kind of instrument, we call Citizen Science. The symposium/ workshop and resulting paper raises the prominence of Citizen Science activities in biodiversity science and articulates the need for new standards in biodiversity informatics. This effort drafts recommendations to address unique needs to Citizen Science biodiversity data, such as the need to incorporate common names standards, and metadata on survey methods and analysis techniques to facilitate data re-use from Citizen Science programs. Citizen Science programs are increasingly used in formal K-16 and informal science education settings expanding opportunities of people to do authentic science and increase science literacy and awareness of local environmental issues. The resulting recommendation and best practices are shared with new Citizen Science Alliance organization and their recently formed technology committee. This information can guide designers and program managers of citizen science projects who want to improve the scientific quality of the data they produce. Our activities initiate a partnership between the Biodiversity Information Standards (TWDG) and Citizen Science Alliance that can support biodiversity standards development for Citizen Science.