Capturing Quality: Retaining provenance for curated volunteer monitoring data

S. Andrew Sheppard, Andrea Wiggins, Loren Terveen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

34 Scopus citations

Abstract

The "real world" nature of field-based citizen science involves unique data management challenges that distinguish it from projects that involve only Internet-mediated activities. In particular, many data contribution and review practices are often accomplished "offline" via paper or general-purpose software like Excel. This can lead to integration challenges when attempting to implement project-specific ICT with full revision and provenance tracking. In this work, we explore some of the current challenges and opportunities in implementing ICT for managing volunteer monitoring data. Our two main contributions are: a general outline of the workflow tasks common to field-based data collection, and a novel data model for preserving provenance metadata that allows for ongoing data exchange between disparate technical systems and participant skill levels. We conclude with applications for other domains, such as hydrologic forecasting and crisis informatics, as well as directions for future research.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCSCW 2014 - Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages1234-1245
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9781450325400
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Event17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2014 - Baltimore, MD, United States
Duration: Feb 15 2014Feb 19 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW

Other

Other17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBaltimore, MD
Period2/15/142/19/14

Keywords

  • Citizen science
  • Data exchange
  • Data models
  • EAV
  • ICT
  • Mobile applications
  • Provenance
  • Spreadsheets
  • VGI
  • Volunteer monitoring

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