OGC requests participation in its Citizen Science DWG

Citizen Science is the process of involving the public in scientific research, usually by having them collect, collate, and/or analyze data. There is an increasingly large number of citizen science projects active around the world supporting research and decision-making on topics ranging from biodiversity conservation, to environmental regulation, to infrastructure evaluation and design.

As many citizen science projects are grassroots initiatives formed in response to local concerns, some duplication of the collected data is inevitable. However, for citizen science to have maximum impact on scientific research and public policy, data collected from local projects must also be re-usable on national and global scales - usually beyond the purpose for which they were originally collected.

The OGC Citizen Science DWG is motivated to support citizen science by providing a forum for demonstrating, and increasing the understanding of, the benefits brought by the use of open standards and best practices. The Citizen Science DWG will support the development of improved interoperability arrangements for the citizen science community.

An early work effort of the DWG will be to assess the results of the COBWEB program and consider future standards work.

The OGC is looking for interested parties to assist the Citizen Science DWG in achieving its goals.