DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7961854
title: An annotated list of horizon scanned technologies with potential for application in alien species citizen science projects

description: Context


The contribution of volunteers in recording invasive alien species (IAS) has been fostered by technological developments such as social media, apps, low-cost sensors, search engines and predictive analytics. These technology developments, an increased attention to citizen science and a cultural change towards collaboration and openness in research within the policy agenda should increase the contribution of volunteer recording. Within the framework of the COST Action CA17122 Increasing Understanding of Alien Species through Citizen Science (Roy et al. 2018) a group of researchers explored the value of emerging technologies for citizen science in the context of alien species, recognizing the contribution of volunteers and reviewing their potential to engage broad audiences, motivate volunteers, improve data collection, increase data quality etc.


Survey


The following criteria were then used to evaluate the potential of these technologies for alien species citizen science through a dedicated survey:


● Audience: the technology can attract new target audiences for IAS citizen science and/or support more inclusivity in IAS citizen science (can overcome inequalities in participation, attract under-privileged audiences/those underrepresented in the scientific enterprise, allow participation of sensory/cognitive/otherwise impaired...)
● Engagement with others: the technology supports better connections with other participants, helpful in building a community
● Engagement via feedback: the technology increases the quality, amount or rate of feedback (including supporting learning) to participants
● Application: the technology can be embedded in everyday life and therefore has the potential for wide, generic application


● New data: the technology yields new types of data that would not be available without the technology (improved the detectability of IAS, new types of data, species interactions, new information sources)
● Extends data: the technology expands the scope of data collection or analysis (e.g. better coverage spatially, temporally)
● Improves data quality: the technology improves species ID, reduces uncertainty, improves validation
● Improves the flow of data: the technology increases the speed of record transmission (e.g. for early warning)
● Improves the curation of data: the technology itself allows for improved data curation (better metadata, sustainability and long term preservation data, open data, tracked provenance of data, FAIR data management, enable to better credit citizen scientists for their data contributions)


Dataset description


This dataset represents the list of technologies (in the broadest sense, including approaches) that were identified collectively by the experts as being relevant technologies in the framework of (alien species) citizen science. The dataset includes the following fields:



	
Name: name of the approach/technology
	
Category: broad categorisation of the approach/technology (Hardware and infrastructure, data collection and analysis tools, tools to improve user experience). If some approaches are combinations this is mentioned in description.
	
Description: a definition and/or description of the approach/technology
	
Reference: a reference on the approach/technology (e.g. paper, online reference), mostly with a doi
	
Example: an example of the approach/technology, mostly with reference to an (alien species) citizen science project that applied it
	
Notes: any further remarks