Capturing and communicating impact of citizen science for policy: A storytelling approach.

In response to the need for approaches to understand how citizen science is currently influencing environmental policy and associated decision making, we devised the Citizen Science Impact StoryTelling Approach (CSISTA). We iteratively designed instruments to be used as tools primarily for citizen science practitioners seeking to understand or communicate policy impacts. We then trialled the CSISTA and associated instruments on four exemplary citizen science initiatives, using different forms of inquiry and collaboration with respective initiative leaders. In this paper, we present CSISTA, with details of the steps for implementing inquiry and storytelling instruments. Additionally, we reflect on insights gained and challenges encountered implementing the approach. Overall, we found the versatility and structure of CSISTA as a process with multiple guiding instruments useful. We envision the approach being helpful, particularly with regards to: 1) gaining an understanding of a citizen science initiative's policy and decision-making impacts; 2) creating short policy impact stories to communicate such impacts to broader audiences; or 3) fulfilling both goals to understand and communicate policy impacts with a unified approach. We encourage others to explore, adapt, and improve the approach. Additionally, we hope that explorations of CSISTA will foster broader discussions on how to understand and strengthen interactions between citizen science practitioners, policy makers, and decision makers at large, whether at local, national, or international scales.

Contours of citizen science: a vignette study.

Citizen science has expanded rapidly over the past decades. Yet, defining citizen science and its boundaries remained a challenge, and this is reflected in the literature-for example in the proliferation of typologies and definitions. There is a need for identifying areas of agreement and disagreement within the citizen science practitioners community on what should be considered as citizen science activity. This paper describes the development and results of a survey that examined this issue, through the use of vignettes-short case descriptions that describe an activity, while asking the respondents to rate the activity on a scale from 'not citizen science' (0%) to 'citizen science' (100%). The survey included 50 vignettes, of which five were developed as clear cases of not-citizen science activities, five as widely accepted citizen science activities and the others addressing 10 factors and 61 sub-factors that can lead to controversy about an activity. The survey has attracted 333 respondents, who provided over 5100 ratings. The analysis demonstrates the plurality of understanding of what citizen science is and calls for an open understanding of what activities are included in the field.