Exploring the actions of citizens as scientists through experimentation with aquaponics

"This thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy"."May 2015"Bibliography: pages 84-95.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Background of citizen science -- Chapter 3. Scientific publication patterns -- Chapter 4. Aquaponics -- Chapter 5. Aquaponics research citizen science project -- Chapter 6. Exploring how citizens research -- Chapter 7. Discussion and conclusions.Scientists are increasingly collaborating with citizens to engage in science where, on their own, they lack the resources to collect or analyse the data. In most of these collaborative projects, citizens can be classified as science assistants, helping scientists in their endeavours. While this can produce significant benefits for both the citizen and the scientist, the question arises as to the extent that citizens can contribute to all aspects of the scientific process. This thesis explores how citizens contribute to scientific discovery by experimenting at home in aquaponics systems. Aquaponics allows fish and plants to be grown together providing fresh, locally grown vegetables and fish to homes and communities. Despite the core principles being well known, most systems are independently designed by individuals and show high levels of innovation. There is significant scope for learning how system design, location and other factors affect the success of these systems. The question arises as to whether these innovators are able to join together to research this area by providing detailed on-line data that tracks their system progress as well as analysing the collected dataset, proposing hypotheses, and resolving them based on the available data. From an aquaponics point of view, this was the first systematic study of how home based systems, which comprise of 86% of all aquaponics systems, performed, informs the home aquaponics industry and provides data for future analysis. From a citizen science point of view, this study investigates the key question as to how citizens contributed to science. The ways the citizens research was compared and contrasted with the way scientists researched in the field of aquaponics, providing insights into areas that need further consideration when endeavouring to involve citizens in all aspects of scientific research.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (x, 105 page ) colour illustrations, colour map

An Analysis of Citizen Science Based Research: Usage and Publication Patterns.

The use of citizen science for scientific discovery relies on the acceptance of this method by the scientific community. Using the Web of Science and Scopus as the source of peer reviewed articles, an analysis of all published articles on "citizen science" confirmed its growth, and found that significant research on methodology and validation techniques preceded the rapid rise of the publications on research outcomes based on citizen science methods. Of considerable interest is the growing number of studies relying on the re-use of collected datasets from past citizen science research projects, which used data from either individual or multiple citizen science projects for new discoveries, such as for climate change research. The extent to which citizen science has been used in scientific discovery demonstrates its importance as a research approach. This broad analysis of peer reviewed papers on citizen science, that included not only citizen science projects, but the theory and methods developed to underpin the research, highlights the breadth and depth of the citizen science approach and encourages cross-fertilization between the different disciplines

The percentage of published articles divided into focus areas from 1997 to 2014.

<p>The percentage of published articles divided into focus areas from 1997 to 2014.</p

The number articles acknowledging the use of citizen science data from past projects grouped by topic from 1997 to 2014.

<p>The number articles acknowledging the use of citizen science data from past projects grouped by topic from 1997 to 2014.</p

The growth of published peer reviewed articles on citizen science.

<p>The growth of published peer reviewed articles on citizen science.</p

Graphical View of changes in classifications of published articles from 1997 to 2014.

<p>Graphical View of changes in classifications of published articles from 1997 to 2014.</p

Classifying extracted publications into various categories.

<p>Classifying extracted publications into various categories.</p

Categorization of citizen science projects into topics.

<p>Categorization of citizen science projects into topics.</p