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. 2021 Jul 13;13(7):318.
doi: 10.3390/d13070318.

How Do Young Community and Citizen Science Volunteers Support Scientific Research on Biodiversity? The Case of iNaturalist

Maria Aristeidou  1 , Christothea Herodotou  1 , Heidi L Ballard  2 , Lila Higgins  3 , Rebecca F Johnson  4 , Annie E Miller  4 , Alison N Young  4 , Lucy D Robinson  5
Affiliations

How Do Young Community and Citizen Science Volunteers Support Scientific Research on Biodiversity? The Case of iNaturalist

Maria Aristeidou et al. Diversity (Basel). .

Abstract

Online community and citizen science (CCS) projects have broadened access to scientific research and enabled different forms of participation in biodiversity research; however, little is known about whether and how such opportunities are taken up by young people (aged 5-19). Furthermore, when they do participate, there is little research on whether their online activity makes a tangible contribution to scientific research. We addressed these knowledge gaps using quantitative analytical approaches and visualisations to investigate 249 youths' contributions to CCS on the iNaturalist platform, and the potential for the scientific use of their contributions. We found that nearly all the young volunteers' observations were 'verifiable' (included a photo, location, and date/time) and therefore potentially useful to biodiversity research. Furthermore, more than half were designated as 'Research Grade', with a community agreed-upon identification, making them more valuable and accessible to biodiversity science researchers. Our findings show that young volunteers with lasting participation on the platform and those aged 16-19 years are more likely to have a higher proportion of Research Grade observations than younger, or more ephemeral participants. This study enhances our understanding of young volunteers' contributions to biodiversity research, as well as the important role professional scientists and data users can play in helping verify youths' contributions to make them more accessible for biodiversity research.

Keywords: biodiversity; citizen science; community science; data quality; iNaturalist; online participation; young volunteers.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Quality grade per iNaturalist taxon category. The blue colour shows the percentage of youth’s contributions that became Research Grade; the orange colour shows the contributions that still need an ID; and the red colour represents the contributions that are Casual.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Frequency distribution of the Research Grade ratio. The graph shows the percentage difference between the Research Grade and overall observations. Youth contributed a median of 11 observations that became Research Grade.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Research Grade ratio bar chart of means for gender (left) and age (right). The graph shows the Research Grade ratio mean and SD for each group and denotes significant differences, if any, between groups. The star (*) indicates significant statistical differences between groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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