Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS)

Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) is a situated, bottom-up practice that takes into account local needs, practices and culture and works with broad networks of people to design and build new devices and knowledge creation processes that can transform the world. ExCiteS brings together scholars from diverse fields to develop and contribute to the guiding theories, tools and methodologies that will enable any community to start a Citizen Science project to deal with issues that concern them. With an interdisciplinary research approach we aim to provide any user, regardless of their background or literacy level, with a set of tools that can be used to collect, analyse and act on information according to agreed upon scientific methods. For 'Extreme' Citizen Science projects to succeed, a narrow disciplinary knowledge is not enough. It requires the engagement of communities, overcoming many technical and human-technology interaction challenges and the ability to deliver practical solutions, in addition to an understanding of the questions surrounding the science of Citizen Science. Our interdisciplinary group achieves this by drawing on the knowledge of geographers, anthropologists, computer scientists, Human-Computer Interaction experts, designers, electronic engineers, ecologists and other fields. We focus on participatory sensing, monitoring and modelling activities, with communities deciding what measurements are taken and how they are analysed so that they can participate in and lead subsequent decision-making and actions. We aim to change the current state of the art by developing technologies to enable lay people to understand and manage their environment with established scientific methods and models.