TY - JOUR
T1 - Focused Campaign Increases Activity among Participants in Nature's Notebook, a Citizen Science Project
AU - Crimmins, Theresa M.
AU - Weltzin, Jake F.
AU - Rosemartin, Alyssa H
AU - Surina, Echo M.
AU - Marsh, Lee
AU - Denny, Ellen G.
N1 - Funding Information: Plant phenology data were provided by the USA National Phenology Network and the many participants who contribute to its program. We are thankful to all who contributed data, especially the efforts of Esperanza Stancioff and the participants of the Sign of the Seasons program. We also appreciate the staff of the USA‐NPN National Coordinating Office who provided support for this effort and helpful input on this manuscript. We are also grateful to Tina Phillips and two anonymous reviewers who provided valuable comments that improved the article. The project described in this publication was supported by Grant/Cooperative Agreement no. G09AC00310 from the U.S. Geological Survey. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Nature's Notebook Funding Information: Plant phenology data were provided by the USA National Phenology Network and the many participants who contribute to its Nature's Notebook program. We are thankful to all who contributed data, especially the efforts of Esperanza Stancioff and the participants of the Sign of the Seasons program. We also appreciate the staff of the USA-NPN National Coordinating Office who provided support for this effort and helpful input on this manuscript. We are also grateful to Tina Phillips and two anonymous reviewers who provided valuable comments that improved the article. The project described in this publication was supported by Grant/Cooperative Agreement no. G09AC00310 from the U.S. Geological Survey. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2014 by the American Society of Agronomy.
PY - 2014/12
Y1 - 2014/12
N2 - science projects, which engage non-professional scientists in one or more stages of scientific research, have been gaining popularity; yet maintaining participants’ activity level over time remains a challenge. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential for a short-term, focused campaign to increase participant activity in a national-scale citizen science program. The campaign that we implemented was designed to answer a compelling scientific question. We invited participants in the phenology-observing program, Nature's Notebook, to track trees throughout the spring of 2012, to ascertain whether the season arrived as early as the anomalous spring of 2010. Consisting of a series of six electronic newsletters and costing our office slightly more than 1 week of staff resources, our effort was successful; compared with previous years, the number of observations collected in the region where the campaign was run increased by 184%, the number of participants submitting observations increased by 116%, and the number of trees registered increased by 110%. In comparison, these respective metrics grew by 25, 55, and 44%, over previous years, in the southeastern quadrant of the United States, where no such campaign was carried out. The campaign approach we describe here is a model that could be adapted by a wide variety of programs to increase engagement and thereby positively influence participant retention.
AB - science projects, which engage non-professional scientists in one or more stages of scientific research, have been gaining popularity; yet maintaining participants’ activity level over time remains a challenge. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential for a short-term, focused campaign to increase participant activity in a national-scale citizen science program. The campaign that we implemented was designed to answer a compelling scientific question. We invited participants in the phenology-observing program, Nature's Notebook, to track trees throughout the spring of 2012, to ascertain whether the season arrived as early as the anomalous spring of 2010. Consisting of a series of six electronic newsletters and costing our office slightly more than 1 week of staff resources, our effort was successful; compared with previous years, the number of observations collected in the region where the campaign was run increased by 184%, the number of participants submitting observations increased by 116%, and the number of trees registered increased by 110%. In comparison, these respective metrics grew by 25, 55, and 44%, over previous years, in the southeastern quadrant of the United States, where no such campaign was carried out. The campaign approach we describe here is a model that could be adapted by a wide variety of programs to increase engagement and thereby positively influence participant retention.
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U2 - 10.4195/nse2013.06.0019
DO - 10.4195/nse2013.06.0019
M3 - Article
SN - 2168-8273
VL - 43
SP - 64
EP - 72
JO - Natural Sciences Education
JF - Natural Sciences Education
IS - 1
ER -