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Data validation in citizen science: a case study from Project FeederWatch
Author(s) -
Bonter David N,
Cooper Caren B
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
frontiers in ecology and the environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.918
H-Index - 164
eISSN - 1540-9309
pISSN - 1540-9295
DOI - 10.1890/110273
Subject(s) - citizen science , protocol (science) , data science , data quality , computer science , data collection , quality (philosophy) , open science , engineering , sociology , operations management , statistics , medicine , social science , metric (unit) , botany , alternative medicine , philosophy , epistemology , pathology , biology , mathematics
To become more widely accepted as a valuable research tool, citizen‐science projects must find ways to ensure that data gathered by large numbers of people with varying levels of expertise are of consistently high quality. Here, we describe a data validation protocol developed for Project FeederWatch, a continent‐wide bird monitoring program, that is designed to increase researchers' and participants' confidence in the data being collected.