Citizen science in the Information Society
New world trends
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52712/issn.1850-0013-577Keywords:
citizen science, empowerment, ICTsAbstract
The E-Citizen Science (eCS), also known as “e-science”, is the new term applied to the participation of laymen in scientific projects, a practice that has been expanded into the 21st century by the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The eCS has developed rapidly in the last two decades. The most recent developments are due to the sum of new scientific approaches and the use of ICTs. The eCS includes a variety of applications, from agriculture to urban planning, from public health to oceanography, from social sciences to software and services, and to space engineering. This work, based on a research conducted for UNESCO in 2012, focuses on some of the global trends in the use of ICTs in participatory scientific projects. It analyzes the role of citizen scientists in eCS projects, reveals a shortage of projects to gender studies, notices that the use of eCS empowers communities, and finally stresses the importance of public policies on science and technology in the development of eCS. This paper does not attempt to capture all of these trends. Instead, it proposes to pay attention to the most essential and relevant sources of information and areas of debate.
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