From the beginning of the term, my research interest has changed quite a bit. Instead of the communication between traditional scholars, I began thinking about how amateur scholars communicate. In particular, amateur scientists (or citizen scientists) captured my attention.
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| Source: "The Return of Amateur Science" by Mark Frauenfelder |
Before amateur became a sort of dirty word, it was considered a noble pursuit. Indeed, amateur science continues to contribute in important ways to STEM fields. Just as I was doing research on this topic, this article popped up on my Twitter feed:
Space rock smashing into Jupiter captured by amateur astronomers
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| Source: CBC News |
The missing piece of information-seeking behavior in science is how amateurs find the information that they need to conduct experiments or develop theories. One of the difficulties lies in the precarious nature of citizen science groups, associations, and organizations. Although important research comes out of citizen science, the lack of formal organizations makes it difficult to track information-seeking behavior. One concern that I have in this research is figuring out how to reach people who participate in these activities and make sure to have a varied enough sample group.
What is exactly 'un-documentable' about information-seeking behavior in citizen science? It may be the fact that the research process is difficult to define and is often not recorded. The one article I found about information-seeking of amateur scientists and the many about professional scientists have depended on surveys. By using a method such as interviews, it may become easier to capture some of the process of amateur science.
Great post, Jelena! I often have the same thoughts about citizen science. It really makes us think about what constitutes "authoritative" knowledge and why is official knowledge documented in particular ways that increase its authenticity over-time... Part of what bothers me about this whole citizen scientist issue (along with other examples of the "crowd-sourcing" of knowledge production) is that I can't help but thinking is that when faced with extreme austerity and nil budgets, public institutions are forced to outsource their work to unpaid labour. In the archives domain, description has been crowd-sourced purportedly as a way to pluralize the discourse communities that contribute to this process. For instance, have a look at Project Naming: http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/aboriginal-heritage/project-naming/Pages/introduction.aspx
ReplyDeleteIn this case, I find it troubling that aboriginal knowledge remains "bracketed" or unofficial and that the labour to (re)name archival objects is unpaid, thereby existing outside of the formal political economy... I guess this all comes back to my main concern -- should society really have to depend on citizen science for important things (e.g. measuring the water levels of the Great Lakes) should the work that they do be better represented within the paid economy?