Overview
Over the fall of 2013, organizations supporting citizen science came to a landmark agreement – to share basic information across databases that catalog citizen science projects.
The collaborative success for citizen science and public participation in scientific research (PPSR) led to the development of the PPSR_CORE Program Data Model Metadata Standard / data sharing protocol.
Sharing information across databases maximizes everyone’s efforts, getting more “bang for the buck” out of information about citizen science projects everywhere. It leads to current, up-to-date, and synchronized project lists and a broader understanding about citizen science globally.
The Need
With the proliferation of citizen science, a number of organizations have been cataloging projects to offer support, network practitioners, and/or track outcomes. These efforts are complementary. Up-to-date information about citizen science projects is valuable to both project leaders and researchers, but the task of entering and maintaining this information in multiple places is cumbersome.
The Significance
By agreeing to openly share core data fields about projects, the citizen science community benefits:
- project leaders can add and edit information about their project in a single place of choice
- project information can be shared and synchronized automatically across all participating databases
- project updates in one database are reflected, in real time, across multiple databases serving a variety of purposes
- those searching for projects can do so from any provider and be confident results contain the most up-to-date information
The Team
Several core founding organizations started the PPSR_CORE initiative (below) and we are now forming an international working group to continue this important work.
Following the PPSR Core meta data standards and using an open Creative Commons license (CC-SA), SciStarter has a functioning API to pull in bulk or programmatic additions of projects. SciStarter also has an open API to share projects by opening access to others who wish to search, retrieve, and display project information. The SciStarter API is documented at http://scistarter.com/api
Moving Forward
The Citizen Science Association will maintain oversight of these standards, and guide terms of use for sharing of public, private, and government data. For now, these standards describe a core set of fields. Organizations are invited to propose and build extensions that can enhance these standards, such as extensions that describe a particular subset of projects or project features. As keystone databases such as SciStarter, CitSci.org, and CitizenScience.org adopt and use these metadata standards, it is to the greatest advantage of all in the field to adopt and join in the process of enhancing and improving these standards to the benefit of all.
Required Fields
Below are required metadata fields, formats, and descriptions.
| ID | Field | Data Type | Req? | Vocab. | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ProjectGUID | GUID |
Y |
A Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) for each PPSR project | |
| 2 | ProjectName | text |
Y |
Name of project | |
| 3 | ProjectDataProvider | text |
Y |
Name of data provider / source / initial first registry | |
| 4 | ProjectDescription | text |
Y |
Description of project related to aspects such as goals, objectives, purpose, vision, etc. | |
| 5 | ProjectDateLastUpdated | ISO 8601 DateTime (UTC) |
Y |
Date the project information was last updated; (required in DBs but not in XML) | |
| 6 | DatabaseContactName | Person Object / Construct |
Y |
Database contact first and last name | |
| 7 | ProjectStatus | text / categorical |
Y |
Starting, active, complete, hiatus | Current status of the project activity |
Optional Fields
Below are optional metadata fields, formats, and descriptions.
| ID | Field | Data Type | Req? | Vocab. | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | publicContact | Person Object/Construct |
N |
Person that interested public or researchers should contact | |
| 9 | publicContactAffiliation | text |
N |
Public contact primary affiliation | |
| 10 | publicContactEmail | text |
N |
Public contact email address | |
| 11 | publicContactPhone | text |
N |
Public contact phone number | |
| 12 | publicContactAddress | text |
N |
Public contact mailing address | |
| 13 | numParticipants | int |
N |
Total number of registered participants | |
| 14 | projectActiveParticipantDefinition | text |
N |
Definition used by the project for an “active participant” | |
| 15 | numActiveparticipants | int |
N |
Total number of active participants based on the project’s definition of activity | |
| 16 | participantAge | int |
N |
Age of participants (if known) | |
| 17 | participantAudience_Scistarter | text |
N |
— Select — | Target participants (defined by user research with Scistarter) |
| 18 | participantEducation | text |
N |
— Select — | Type of education required for participation |
| 19 | educatorMaterials | text |
N |
Link(s) to project’s teacher guides and/or note avaialbility in print form | |
| 20 | participationTasks | text |
N |
— Select — | Participation tasks |
| 21 | projectGear | text |
N |
Essential equipment for participation (tools, gear, field equipment, apps, Internet access, etc.) | |
| 22 | fieldOfScience | text |
N |
— Select — | General field of science. Top level categories defined by National Academies |
| 23 | projectInstitutionName | text |
N |
Institution or organization that is hosting the project | |
| 24 | projectDataAPI | text / url |
N |
URL or API for current data | |
| 25 | projectImage | image |
N |
Image | |
| 26 | projectURL | text / url |
N |
URL for project home page | |
| 27 | projectFacebook | text / url |
N |
URL for project Facebook page or group | |
| 28 | projectTwitter | text / url |
N |
Project Twitter handle | |
| 29 | projectBlog | text / url |
N |
URL for project blog | |
| 30 | preferredSocialMedia | text / url |
N |
Preferred social media outlet (may or may not be listed above) |
In Progress Fields
Discussion of the following metadata fields is an ongoing process.
| ID | Field | Data Type | Req? | Vocab. | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | ProjectStartYear | ISO 8601 Year (UTC) |
N |
Year project started (not date volunteers begin participation) | |
| 32 | ProjectEndDate | ISO 8601 Date (UTC) |
N |
End date of project if applicable | |
| 33 | ProjectOrganization | text |
N |
Organization supporting the project | |
| 34 | ProjectPartners | text |
N |
List of project partners | |
| 35 | ProjectScientificPartners | text |
N |
List of scientific collaborators; i.e. scientists or academic departments using the data collected | |
| 36 | ProjectSector | text / categorical |
N |
— Select — | Project sector description |
| 37 | ProjectGeospatialRange | text |
N |
— Select — | To define active range – could be continental/state/province/counties/etc. Use the EML standard for inspiration? |
| 38 | ProjectCoverageBoundary | WKT data / many LL coordinates / Polygonal data |
N |
User-defined polygon | |
| 39 | ProjectPinLatittude | floating point |
N |
Latitude coordinate in geographic decimal degrees for the center or home base of the project best representing the project’s location as a point. | |
| 40 | ProjectPinLongitude | floating point |
N |
Longitude coordinate in geographic decimal degrees for the center or home base of the project best representing the project’s location as a point. | |
| 41 | ProjectTags (or ProjectKeywords) | text |
N |
List of tags to assist with searching and filtering. | |
| 42 | ProjectMetadata | text |
N |
Catch-all for any project-specific data administrators want to make available. | |
| 43 | projectVolunteerSupport | text/ categorical |
N |
— Select — | The training, communication, incentives, and other forms of support that a project offers its volunteers. |
Posted on: October 9, 2015 | Category: Data and Metadata Working Group