Citizen science involving collections of standardized community data

Abstract

The interest of “Citizen Scientists” in their local environment is potentially of great value because they can assist in supplying essential “Environmental Knowledge” in an efficient and cost-effective way. This is particularly the case when “Volunteered Data” is registered in a standardized manner, interoperable with the data created by official institutions. The present work incorporates OpenStreetMap (OSM) and broadly accepted metadata-standards, that are controlled by scientific communities, to include the use of standardized interfaces for volunteered data contributions. An essential requirement for citizen science to operate, is the participation of the people. Spatial cognition is concerned with the acquisition, organization, employment, and examination of “knowledge about spatial environments”. By this means “knowledge about spatial environments” is related to geographic proximity. Both OSM and metadata standards explore recent technologies for “Semantic Web” (SW) and “Linked Open Data” (LOD) enablement. The present study discusses the challenges and effects of standardized community contributions.