Practical recommendations from a multi-perspective needs and challenges assessment of citizen science games

PLoS One. 2023 May 5;18(5):e0285367. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285367. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Citizen science games are an increasingly popular form of citizen science, in which volunteer participants engage in scientific research while playing a game. Their success depends on a diverse set of stakeholders working together-scientists, volunteers, and game developers. Yet the potential needs of these stakeholder groups and their possible tensions are poorly understood. To identify these needs and possible tensions, we conducted a qualitative data analysis of two years of ethnographic research and 57 interviews with stakeholders from 10 citizen science games, following a combination of grounded theory and reflexive thematic analysis. We identify individual stakeholder needs as well as important barriers to citizen science game success. These include the ambiguous allocation of developer roles, limited resources and funding dependencies, the need for a citizen science game community, and science-game tensions. We derive recommendations for addressing these barriers.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Citizen Science*
  • Humans
  • Research Design
  • Volunteers

Grants and funding

L.H.V.’s research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG – German Research Foundation; https://www.dfg.de/) – 464513114. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.