Interactive guidelines: Public communication of data-based research in cities

Abstract

Scientific research results are traditionally published as articles in peer-reviewed conference proceedings or journals. These articles often use technical jargon, which precludes the general public from consuming the results achieved. New ways to communicate scientific results are thus necessary to transfer scientific insights to non-experts, and this work proposes the concept of interactive guidelines to fill this gap. A web tool, called Interactive Guidelines Tool, was developed as a proof-of-concept for the idea. It was used in the context of the GEO-C project to communicate research outputs in smart cities scenarios to the public. A comparative analysis between the Interactive Guidelines Tool and related tools helps to highlight the progress it enables beyond the current state of the art. Interactive Guidelines Tool is available as an open-source tool and can be customised/extended by any interested researcher, in the process of making scientific knowledge and insights more accessible and understandable to a broader public.