Citizen science offers significant innovation potential in science, society and policy. To foster environmental and conservation goals, citizen science can (i) generate new knowledge, (ii) enhance ...awareness raising and facilitate in-depth learning as well as (iii) enable civic participation. Here, we investigate how these aims are realised in citizen science projects and assess needs and challenges for advancing citizen science and stimulating future initiatives. To this end, we conducted a quantitative, web-based survey with 143 experts from the environmental and educational sector in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Our findings show that citizen science project managers pursue goals related to all three areas of potential impact. Interestingly, enabling civic participation was considered slightly less important in relation to generating new knowledge and creating learning opportunities. Different areas of necessary action emerge from our analysis. To fully realize the potential of citizen science for generating knowledge, priority should be given to enhance capacities to more effectively share research results with the scientific community through publication, also in scientific journals. Systematic evaluation is needed to gain a better understanding of citizen science learning outcomes, for which criteria need to be developed. Fostering project formats that allow participants to get involved in the whole research process – from posing the study question to implementing results – could enhance the transformative aspect of citizen science at a societal level. Important structural aspects that need to be addressed include adjustments in funding schemes, facilitation of communication between citizens and academia-based scientists, and offers for training, guidance and networking.
•Citizen science can foster environmental goals in three ways.•We surveyed 143 experts from the environmental and educational sectors.•Capacities for peer-reviewed publishing of citizen science findings need enhancement.•Structures for networking and guidance are highly relevant for citizen science.•Systematic evaluation is needed to assess citizen science learning outcomes.
La investigación filosófica jurídica, dentro de las tipologías de investigaciones científicas jurídicas, se erige como un componente esencial, junto con la dogmática, histórica, sociológica, ...antropológica y axiológica, para el estudio exhaustivo del objeto de derecho. Este enfoque específico se centra en explorar los fundamentos filosóficos jurídicos que sustentan el nivel alcanzado por la norma jurídica en un contexto social específico. A pesar de su importancia, la dimensión filosófica suele ser subestimada en las investigaciones del fenómeno jurídico, incluyendo los procesos formativos universitarios. Este estudio, basado en teoría fundamentada y análisis documental, busca analizar las características, limitaciones y significados de la investigación filosófica jurídica, así como su impacto y valores en la formación del profesional del Derecho a nivel universitario.
Public Interest in Marine Citizen Science MARTIN, VICTORIA Y.; CHRISTIDIS, LESLIE; PECL, GRETTA T.
BioScience/Bioscience,
08/2016, Volume:
66, Issue:
8
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Social studies in citizen science typically focus on existing project participants. We present results from an online survey of 1145 marine users to identify broader public interest in marine citizen ...science. Although we found considerable community interest, the most enthusiastic tended to have a higher education in science, were under 45 years old, primarily enjoyed SCUBA diving, and had contributed to scientific research in the past. The type of research organization involved in a project played a role in people’s willingness to share information. The discourse of public participation in scientific research encourages public involvement in all aspects of the scientific process; however, we found that the respondents were primarily interested in data-collection opportunities. Feedback and past experiences in research were important considerations for gaining and retaining the volunteers. Our results indicate considerable potential for growth in volunteer recruitment, which can contribute constructively to scientific and public knowledge of the marine environment.
Changes in sea level lead to some of the most severe impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Consequently, they are a subject of great interest in both scientific research and public policy. This ...paper defines concepts and terminology associated with sea level and sea-level changes in order to facilitate progress in sea-level science, in which communication is sometimes hindered by inconsistent and unclear language. We identify key terms and clarify their physical and mathematical meanings, make links between concepts and across disciplines, draw distinctions where there is ambiguity, and propose new terminology where it is lacking or where existing terminology is confusing. We include formulae and diagrams to support the definitions.
In this article, we present a hierarchical model for teaching scientific thinking to gifted students. This article follows up on an article published 40 years ago in this journal. The problem now, as ...40 years ago, is that gifted students often are taught science courses at a more intensive level, but without their truly learning how to think scientifically. We argue that students of science need not only learn the content of science courses, but also learn, at a deep level, how to think scientifically. Our model addresses the issue of what this deep level consists of. Level I involves Teaching Scientific Knowledge. Level II involves Teaching Scientific Problem Solving. Level III involves the deepest level of scientific thinking: Teaching Scientific Problem Finding. We end the article with conclusions about these issues.
Assessing the value of undergraduate research
Undergraduate research experiences often engender enthusiasm in the students involved, but how useful are they in terms of enhancing student learning? ...Linn
et al.
review studies that focus on the effectiveness of undergraduate research programs. Undergraduate research experiences in a class were distinguished from those involving individualized participation in a research program. Mentoring emerges as both an important component of a successful experience and a target for improvement.
Science
, this issue
10.1126/science.1261757
For any undergraduate contemplating a career in scientific research, participating in authentic research seems like a good opportunity. But what are authentic research experiences? How do they benefit undergraduates? What forms of mentoring are successful? What needs improvement? And how can these experiences meet the needs of interested students while at the same time be cost-effective in large research universities?
We review the research tackling these questions and find few answers. While most undergraduates give high ratings to research experiences, specific benefits have not been documented. Of the 60 empirical studies published in the last 5 years, only 4 directly measured gains in research capabilities or conceptual understanding. Most studies draw conclusions from self-report surveys or interviews, notoriously poor methods for documenting impacts. These studies leave us with few insights into what works and little idea about how to make the experiences more effective.
BACKGROUND
Most colleges and universities offer Undergraduate Research Experiences (UREs) and/or Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) (Fig. 1). Two large surveys, the 2004 Freshman Survey and the 2008 College Senior Survey, administered at over 200 institutions, generated data about the impact of undergraduate research experiences on persistence in science and intention to pursue graduate school. These studies document that students appreciate undergraduate research experiences. The surveys are unable, however, to distinguish between UREs and CUREs. In addition, the value that undergraduate research adds cannot be disentangled from precollege preparation, especially for students from groups that are underrepresented in science.
ADVANCES
Designers of UREs expect students to benefit from participating in a scientific laboratory but have not determined optimal ways to orient and guide participants. Students often expect the URE to mimic their college laboratory experiences with procedural guidance and planned outcomes. During the first year of a URE, students often report spending most of their effort on setting up and conducting experiments and limited effort on understanding the investigation or interpreting the results. Students would benefit from an orientation that integrates their beliefs and expectations with the realities of the research experience. The few studies that measure changes in understanding of scientific practices or relevant science concepts report little or no gains after 1 year in a URE. Students who spend over a year in a URE often learn new methodological techniques, collect their own data, interpret findings, and formulate new research questions. The slow enculturation into lab activities may make sense, especially when students join labs investigating questions that do not arise in undergraduate education. The time and resources needed, however, limit the scalability of UREs. Students encounter new ideas during their research experiences but often need guidance to integrate these ideas with their expectations. We discuss ways that designers of UREs can speed up enculturation and strengthen guidance.
Individual mentoring emerges as an effective way to guide students and improve learning from research experiences. Activities that could help students benefit from research experiences include discussion with mentors, participation in group meetings where current research is discussed, guided opportunities to explore relevant research literature, reflection on observations in weekly journals, and synthesis of their insights by creating research proposals, reports, or posters. We discuss ways to prepare mentors so that they can efficiently guide students.
OUTLOOK
Undergraduate research experiences absorb a lot of time, money, and effort. The costs and benefits of research experiences for building human capital, benefitting undergraduates, improving workforce diversity, and strengthening educational outcomes need better understanding. Making the best use of extramural funds and the (often voluntary) contributions of faculty to improve undergraduate research experiences requires a strong research base.
More rigorous research is needed, and the field could benefit by building on insights from the learning sciences. We use the knowledge integration framework to interpret the available findings and to identify gaps in the research base.
We discuss ways to develop validated, generalizable assessments such as methods for measuring ability to locate and interpret primary literature. We suggest techniques for developing criteria for evaluating mentoring interactions. We identify ways to strengthen mentoring and to ensure that research experiences meet the needs of diverse students.
URE in action.
Biofuel research engages a Berkeley undergraduate researcher during a summer internship with the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (funded by NSF grant 1132670).
Most undergraduates give high ratings to research experiences. Studies report that these experiences improve participation and persistence, often by strengthening students’ views of themselves as scientists. Yet, the evidence for these claims is weak. More than half the 60 studies reviewed rely on self-report surveys or interviews. Rather than introducing new images of science, research experiences may reinforce flawed images especially of research practices and conceptual understanding. The most convincing studies show benefits for mentoring and for communicating the nature of science, but the ideas that students learn are often isolated or fragmented rather than integrated and coherent. Rigorous research is needed to identify ways to design research experiences so that they promote integrated understanding. These studies need powerful and generalizable assessments that can document student progress, help distinguish effective and ineffective aspects of the experiences, and illustrate how students interpret the research experiences they encounter. To create research experiences that meet the needs of interested students and make effective use of scarce resources, we encourage systematic, iterative studies with multiple indicators of success.
The COVID-19 outbreak has posed an unprecedented challenge to humanity and science. On the one side, public and private incentives have been put in place to promptly allocate resources toward ...research areas strictly related to the COVID-19 emergency. However, research in many fields not directly related to the pandemic has been displaced. In this paper, we assess the impact of COVID-19 on world scientific production in the life sciences and find indications that the usage of medical subject headings (MeSH) has changed following the outbreak. We estimate through a difference-in-differences approach the impact of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific production using the PubMed database (3.6 Million research papers). We find that COVID-19-related MeSH terms have experienced a 6.5 fold increase in output on average, while publications on unrelated MeSH terms dropped by 10 to 12%. The publication weighted impact has an even more pronounced negative effect (-16% to -19%). Moreover, COVID-19 has displaced clinical trial publications (-24%) and diverted grants from research areas not closely related to COVID-19. Note that since COVID-19 publications may have been fast-tracked, the sudden surge in COVID-19 publications might be driven by editorial policy.
Marine genetic resources both within and beyond national jurisdiction have been the focus of international negotiations in a range of forums in recent years. One recurrent theme throughout these ...discussions has been the absence of detailed information upon which policy responses to the emerging issue of the conservation and sustainable use of marine genetic resources (especially in areas beyond national jurisdiction) could be based. In an effort to address some of these knowledge gaps, this article examines the level and nature of scientific and commercial interest in marine genetic resources, including in areas beyond national jurisdiction. It also examines the changing perspectives of the scientific community in relation to the potential of marine genetic resources.
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