Towards a new ontology of Citizen Science
Hosted by:
University of Novi Sad, and 1000001 Labs
Monday and Tuesday March 27-28, 2017, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Novi Sad, Serbia
Background
We are witnessing a remarkable growth of citizen science, that is, work undertaken by civic educators together with citizen communities to advance science, foster a broad scientific mentality, and/or encourage democratic engagement, which allows society to deal rationally with complex modern problems. The main aim of COST Action CA15212 “Citizen Science to promote creativity, scientific literacy, and innovation throughout Europe” (2016-2020) is to bundle capacities across Europe to investigate and extend the impact of the scientific, educational, policy, and civic outcomes of citizen science with the stakeholders from all sectors concerned (e.g., policy makers, social innovators, citizens, cultural organizations, researchers, charities and NGOs), to gauge the potential of citizen science as enabler of social innovation and socio-ecological transition. The Action explores the potential transformative power of citizen science for smart, inclusive, and sustainable ends, and will provide frameworks for the exploitation of the potential of European citizens for science and innovation. The relevance and timeliness of the Action derive from the recent, sudden increase of activity around citizen science, as ordinary people and researchers begin to understand the power of technological devices, which allow them to record the environment around them and share and collectively interpret data and knowledge to advance science and society.
The University of Novi Sad (www.uns.ac.rs) is the largest state funded higher education institution in the city, with over 50,000 students and 5,000 employees.
One million and one labs is a cooperative established to study artificial intelligence solutions to manage environmental data, and to advance international initiatives on citizen science data and metadata standardization and interoperability.
One goal of the COST Action is to help create an ontology (including a vocabulary) for describing citizen-science projects, observations and analyses, building upon prior research and existing standards, which any organization can model their database structure upon. This goal is also linked to the larger objectives of the Data and Metadata Working Group of the Citizen Science Association (CSA) and the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA).
By convening COST Action’s members with expertise in data and metadata representation, COST Action’s Working group 5 (“Improve data standardization and interoperability“) aims to:
- Refine core requirements of the ontology based on existing use cases.
- Continue to identify core ontology fields and associated metadata by drawing on previous research and existing vocabularies.
- Develop a plan for further refining core requirements, ontology fields, and associated metadata with input from the larger citizen science community.
Time, Location, and Contact Information
Time
The Workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday March 27-28, 2017. Lunch will not be provided, i.e. it will be organized by the meeting participants.
Location
The Workshop will be held in the Multimedia Room on floor 1 of central building (Rectorate) of the University of Novi Sad, located at Dr Zorana Đinđića 1, Novi Sad 21000, Serbia. Please see the map at the end.
Contact
- Please contact Imre Lendak, University of Novi Sad, lendak [at] uns [dot] ac [dot] rs and Luigi Ceccaroni, 1000001 Labs, luigi [at] 1000001labs [dot] org, with any question specifically related to the content of this Workshop.
- Please contact Imre Lendak, University of Novi Sad, lendak [at] uns [dot] ac [dot] rs /+38163855-0-744 with general questions about the logistics of the Workshop.
Agenda
March 27
9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. --- Welcome (goals, housekeeping) + introductions.
9:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. --- Luigi Ceccaroni, 1000001 Labs: Lightening talk overview of the past, present and future goals for the ontology development.
10:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. --- all: Contributions to the analysis of the file "PPSR - Core project metadata mapping - multiple standards".
10:45 a.m. - 10:55 a.m. --- Break.
10:55 a.m. - 11:25 a.m. --- all: Decide how to distribute focus and effort across both (a) project metadata and (b) observational & analysis data.
11:25 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. --- all: Project metadata schema - define and document a standard core.
11:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. --- all: Brainstorm what's missing from the initial list of concepts.
12:00 p.m. - 12:15 p.m. --- all: Analyze what is working well; what could still improve; select additional important fields to be included in the ontology.
12:15 p.m. - 12:30 p.m. --- all: Analyze where each of us is in their efforts with respect to priorities, motivations, drivers.
LUNCH
1:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. --- all: Session on what we agree to be core attributes and what are non-core.
2:00 p.m. - 2:20 p.m. --- all: Progress our previous discussion on standardizing. Definition of processes around managing changes to vocabularies.
2:20 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. --- Break.
2:30 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. --- all: Custodianship, governance and maintenance of a standard.
3:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. --- Joan Masó: OGC’s work related to an ontology of citizen science.
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. --- Discussion, closing thoughts.
March 28
9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. --- Scope and priorities for the ontology, including collaborating with other similar initiatives such as the TDWG Citizen Science Interest Group (http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2012-May/002892.html), CSA's International citizen science metadata Working Group and OGC.
9:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. --- all: Discussion of the work around attribute-level standardization and semantic enablement of attribute-level data.
10:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. --- all: Effective promotion and communication of the ontology to the world. How to build profile and uptake.
10:45 a.m. - 10:55 a.m. --- Break.
10:55 a.m. - 11:25 a.m. --- all: Issues and direction setting/planning session on the observation/analysis component.
11:25 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. --- Jaume Piera and Luigi Ceccaroni (They will be participating in the CSA Conference in May in the US): Definition of a joint WG5 strategy for that big conference - e.g. who to meet and connect with.
11:45 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. --- all: Refinement of core requirements of the ontology of citizen science based on existing experience (not only in biodiversity).
LUNCH
1:30 p.m. - 2:20 p.m. --- all: Refinement of the identification of core ontology classes and associated relations by drawing on previous research, existing vocabularies and instantiations.
2:20 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. --- Break.
2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. --- all: Development of a plan for further refining core requirements, ontology classes and associated relations with input from the larger citizen science community.
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. --- Discussion, closing thoughts.
Workshop Report
Can be found here.