Trust building in an interactive citizen science digital environment: the case of youth engagement in sustainable urban development of Riga, Latvia
How can a digital environment foster trust in citizen science projects? What type of tools and tool sets are required to facilitate trust among citizen scientists? And how does communication take place in a digital environment? These are guiding questions for a discussion session where the researcher and practitioner will reflect on their experience on how an interactive app toolkit can support a meaningful and engaging exchange among citizen scientists and researchers.
Based on the project "The Potential of Photo Elicitation Methods in Research on Youth Digital Civic Participation: The Case of Riga’s Urban Environment" an experience of the CiVo App running on the SPOTTERON Citizen Science Platform will be shared. The project actively involved youth in observing the urban environment. After the project, a focus group revealed the following insights: a) Knowing and seeing other contributions were appreciated among citizen scientists, 2) the role of facilitator was crucial and highly important to foster community building and active engagement.
In this hands-on session, we will invite participants to step into the role of a citizen science facilitator who, within the CiVo App environment, guides and interacts with young citizen scientists. An imagination game will take place in which we will work with the observations submitted during the project. Through this interactive session, we aim to demonstrate that while digital communication tools are one aspect, the facilitator's skill set in applying these tools is crucial. The facilitator should be able to empathize with citizen scientists, respond appropriately depending on the situation, and communicate with research participants via short, concise messages within the digital environment. Maybe sometimes emojis reinforce the meaning of the text? But how do you know which one to choose? How do you convey your message in a way that’s easy and encouraging? We foresee the symposium as the perfect venue to explore the diversity of ways of building trust in citizen science projects and how communication skills play a role in the digital environment.
Innovatives Format (Workshop, Roundtable, Demonstration, Dialog- or Teilhabe-Format)
Room 2