Empowering Open Science Through Libraries: SDU’s Citizen Science Knowledge Center Drives Innovation
Within PathOS we are collecting stories on how Open Science (Open Access to publications, Open/FAIR data and software, collaborations with citizens) has made a positive or negative impact. Our ultimate aim is to highlight stories of Open Science practices and how these are linked to impactful outcomes. In this way, we hope to foster a learning experience and to inspire others to follow. Join us and read the first Open Science stories!
Could you briefly introduce yourself and what your Open Science story is about, including its time (e.g. year range) and location?
I’m Thomas Kaarsted and I am the director of the Citizen Science Knowledge Center at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), and the deputy library director at the SDU Library.
In 2021, we established the Citizen Science Knowledge Center. The CS Knowledge Center offers researchers a number of services, from co-designing Citizen Science projects with them, to onboarding other units at SDU and ensuring they get funding. We typically do all the practical project management, recruitment, events, the app building for data collection, the platforms, and the data management for the researchers.
At the Knowledge Center we work with both internal and external partners, from Odense University Hospital, other universities and really hundreds of societal partners of all kinds. At SDU we have around 100 researchers interested in Citizen Science, and we are trying to bridge them with the more than 200 partners that we are currently working with. We have a staff of eight that works part-time with Citizen Science, and we have employees or project managers in specific projects that work full time on some projects.
“Libraries have the skills to support Citizen Science, from grants writing to data management, but they must take an active role rather than waiting to be asked.”
What was the context or background in which this Open Science practice was used? What were the goals or expected outcomes?
In 2016 we had some renovations and reorganisations at SDU which led to that the Faculty of Health Sciences beginning a move into the main campus. This presented an opportunity for internal collaboration between the faculties. This was when we started collaborating internally on Citizen Science. We did a few pilots and workshops and it turned out they were quite successful. In 2016, the League of European Research Universities did a white paper on Citizen Science recommending that a point of contact for Citizen Science within research organisations could grow the field. We read that and really took it to heart, and since then the SDU library has been this one point of contact.
The Knowledge Center is based in the library and that is by design, because the faculties were a bit mindful that if it were placed at e.g. health science or the engineering faculty, they might be more inclined use it. We believed the library personnel were skilled to facilitate this dialogue.
What was your role or relationship to this Open Science practice? Were you a direct participant, an observer, or something else?
As the director of the Citizen Science Knowledge Center, I oversee the overall operations and ensure the successful implementation of Citizen Science projects. I also facilitate communication and collaboration between researchers, students, and societal partners.
How was this Open Science practice implemented, to your knowledge? Who were the key actors involved?
The Knowledge Center was implemented through the collaborative efforts of various stakeholders, including the SDU library staff, researchers from different faculties, and external partners. The key actors involved were the library personnel, who were skilled in facilitating dialogue and managing projects, and the researchers who were engaged in Citizen Science initiatives.
Were there any quantifiable outcomes or measurable successes linked to this practice? What metrics or indicators were used to evaluate these outcomes, if any?
In general, we do not have specific targets at the Knowledge Center, but we absolutely need to be relevant for the people who participate; we have a general rule that says, “if it's not motivating, engaging and producing research results, we shouldn't do it.”
We are working with many different projects; therefore, it is challenging to compare them in measurement and to find a metric that would fit for all. We can measure SDU outcome in research articles, from peer reviewed, conferences, papers, abstracts and proceedings, and we are quite successful in doing that. We also have good numbers regarding the reach of our projects, and often one or two of our projects a year are present in mass media. We cannot measure, though, how tangible results can make a difference from the citizens who participate. We could argue that societal impact is that they know more about science, they learn about Citizen Science, they feel motivated, but we are lacking a framework for communicating this to the public and to grants foundations, who might be wondering what we can do for them and, and even more important, what can we do for the citizens we claim to be representing.
While a lot of Citizen Science projects are extremely successful in making a concrete outcome for individual citizen groups, as a general rule, in my view, the Citizen Science community could initiate a deliberation on a Citizen Science framework with some parameters to identify activities that can have an impact on the participants. In the end, it’s not only about scientific impact but also societal impact.
What challenges were associated with this practice, from your perspective? What lessons can be drawn from its implementation?
First of all, it’s really important, in my perspective, that research organisations team up internally. Otherwise, very good researchers will be doing a lot of ad hoc projects, and you will not get the capacity building and knowledge sharing liwithin the organization.
That said, last year we worked with around 220 external partners, including public schools, kindergartens, high school students from at least 25 different high schools, NGOs, grant foundations, external media partners, companies, clubs, associations, and individual citizens.
A main challenge is weighing every single partner's contribution every single time, which adds complexity. We have gotten better at our job because we ensure stakeholder analysis and carefully plan the community-building process.
When presenting our work, we always get the question of “how do we get started?” There is no one size fits all in Citizen Science. In some institutions it is a director’s choice to work with Citizen Science, but in many cases, it is a bottom-up approach. My advice would be to investigate what is already going on at your university, try to do some internal advocacy and do some pilots around Citizen Science. Researchers often wants to explore more Citizen Science, but they lack resources and time. For this reason, professional facilitation around Citizen Science is extremely important.
How do you perceive this practice's influence on the wider scientific community or society? Has it affected your own views or approaches to research?
Citizen Science was previously perceived mainly as natural science, such as bees and birds, and water quality. While this is important, we facilitate Citizen Science within all five faculties at our university, including social sciences and humanities, focusing on qualitative research and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
For example, we have been doing a project called "Find a Lake" for several years, evolving into a broader project on science communication within schools and associations. We investigate the motivation of participating citizens, demonstrating that Citizen Science can be a vehicle for cross-disciplinary research. Citizen Science at SDU is about facilitating a dialogue with the public.
Based on your experience or observation, would you recommend this Open Science practice to others? Why or why not?
Yes. Last year we circulated a survey to research libraries in Europe, including our own library, and we identified 14 different skills that could be useful for working with Citizen Science, namely grants writing, preservation of data and protocols, writing state-of-the-art research applications, organising events and workshops, co-designing sessions and data management. The results of the survey showed that research libraries have these skills already, but only few of them are doing this. The reasons why universities or research libraries are not doing this has to do with push and pull factors and it has to do with scientific traditions. Libraries tend to be leaning back and expect that they are asked to carry out a task. On the contrary, it is assumed that those working in innovation or in EU or in other projects are proactive and seek opportunities.
Somebody once said that “strategy is going out and doing stuff every day”, so we can't sit back and wait for people to ask us to work with Citizen Science, because then, the entities outside universities will take on the role. For this reason, I believe there is an urgent need for libraries to establish a platform to continue working and for universities to professionally facilitate this dialogue.
Read more:
Kaarsted, Thomas, Blake, Oliver, Nielsen, Kristian Hvidtfelt, Alving, Berit, Rasmussen, Lotte Thing, Overgaard, Anne Kathrine and Hansen, Sebrina Maj-Britt. "How European Research Libraries Can Support Citizen-Enhanced Open Science" Open Information Science, vol. 7, no. 1, 2023, pp. 20220146. https://doi.org/10.1515/opis-2022-0146
