Toolkit

Glossary

Term Definition
Bottom-up Refers to a situation where community members generate the research question or initiate a project. Opposite of >Top-down
Campaign Short term activity or project
Collective Intelligence Shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision-making
Data cleaning The process of removing inconsistencies from data (or dealing with outliers) before analysis
Data management plan Document that describes the data lifecycle: how it is collected, processed, published, etc.
Data quality Activities that apply quality management techniques to data, such as planning, implementation, or control, in order to assure the data is fit for consumption and meet the needs of data consumers
Data set Collection of information belonging together (often a spreadsheet with values)
EDI Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. This refers to the social dimension of citizen science projects
Experiment Procedure carried out to test a hypothesis
FAIR principles Principles that apply to open science data. The four principles are: Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability
GDPR General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679. EU law governing data protection principles, including the collection, storage and usage of personal data
Hypothesis Verifiable or falsifiable statement of an expected research outcome
Impact Consequences of an action. For CS projects, impact primarily concerns intended consequences or goals
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Rights of content producers. IPR are created with the development of any outputs (analysis, reports, videos, photos…). The most common form is Copyright. IPR can be sold, released, or adapted through > Licensing.
Licensing Licenses regulate the ownership and legal use of resources, such as data. The most common form of licensing is Creative Commons. Licenses allow others to use the licensed resource under the terms the license defines (such as ‘name the source’)
Milestone Key points in a project plan, that need to be achieved.
Motivation Personal motivation is a key aspect in volunteers’ participation in citizen science
Open Data Data/information that is reusable by others through appropriate > Licencing
Platform Software infrastructure that allows or eases specific steps of a citizen science project, such as data gathering (e.g. on EpicollectV,) or classification (e.g. on Zooniverse)
Policy maker Any actor involved in making or influencing policy, at any level of government or another organisation
Research question A question that a study or research project aims to answer. It often addresses an issue or a problem, which, through analysis and interpretation of data, is answered in the study’s conclusion
Results aggregation The process of grouping together results produced by multiple contributors.
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Approach to research and innovation that accounts for its > Impact
Sample A specimen or small amount of something, often for analysis
Sensor Device that measures something, often automatically
Stakeholder All people/groups with an influence on or an interest in a project
Top-down Refers to a situation where a person or institution outside the community, usually with authority within the research or governance space, initiates a project
Volunteers Citizen science contributors participating in > Campaigns as volunteers