Course info

🔴 Course description: 

This is a free course of approximately 1 hour 45 minutes. It is aimed at anyone who will spend time interacting with citizen scientists - for example, recruiting people to participate in your project, blogging, or acting as a group leader or discussion forum moderator.

You will need to have an overview of citizen science, but no in-depth knowledge is required.

Millions of people choose to contribute to science as citizen scientists, and have a variety of motivations to do so. Once in the project, they require feedback and communication, and, often, a space in which to discuss the project and the wider issues with their peers - and with you. Depending on the project, they may also need specific tools or learning opportunities.

This course will introduce you to a variety of means to promote effective communication between everyone involved in the project, to community building, and to a deeper understanding of the citizen scientist's perspective and their needs.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Understand some concerns and barriers citizen scientists may face when they sign up to a project, and ways you may be able to overcome them;
• Plan how to enable communications and discussions to take place in citizen science;
• Analyse your own citizen science project to choose the best platform for learning, feedback and community building.

💡Access information

This course allows 1) guest access (no registration required) and 2) self-enrollment as a user. 

Type of access

Using guest access allows you to see course content freely but does not enable you to save your learning progress or earn a badge. Self-enrollment as a user allows you to see the course content, save your learning progress and earn a badge.

How to access

Guest access: enter the key ‘Volunteers’ into option “Guest access” below.

Self-enrollment: To self- enroll first create your account on the citizenscience.eu platform - then on the ECS Academy (it is a two step process). Once you have created your account on the ECS Academy you will be able to enroll without a key.