This file hosts a session proposal for the First International ECSA Conference 2016 "Citizen Science – Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy" that was held in Berlin on 19–21 May, 2016. The session proposal was submitted on December 14 and rejected on December 19, 2015.
At the conference itself, there was an unconference session (called ThinkCamp — see program) on the third day. While a number of projects had been proposed for this session beforehand, it was possible to suggest additional ones on the spot. I took that opportunity and brought up the topic of usability and interoperability of citizen science projects and platforms, which then led to an interesting discussion. The group was too small to take notes and discuss at the same time, but I am confident that the topic will surface again, and looking forward to engage with whoever shares that interest.
Hands-on usability
This session aims to encourage its participants to try out citizen science projects of their choice, on their own laptops or other mobile devices. They will be prompted to assess the usability of the tested projects via a lightweight survey, and for a small number of specific projects (to be selected via the upcoming call for abstracts), representatives will be there to help deepen the interaction between the projects and these new test users.
The main goals of the session are to provide conference participants with a hands-on experience of citizen science projects new to them, and to provide organizers of citizen science projects with feedback on usability. An intended side effect of the preparation of the session is the creation of a simplified way to assess citizen science projects in terms of their usability by new users.
- demos, usability, assessment