Data Management Planning for Citizen Science.

Abstract

This guidance note provides specific, practical advice to citizen science practitioners (specifically those involved in the planning, collection, storage or use of data) about the development of data management plans to support the value of datasets from citizen science projects. A good Data Management Plan – considering the whole lifecycle of data from its creation and storage to its use, publication and re-use – will add value to citizen science datasets and help them to have greatest possible use and impact. UKEOFOver the last decade there has been a sharp increase in the use of citizen science to generate data to support and inform scientific research1. This has also raised interest in the use of these data as a potential source of evidence to inform public policy and decision making2. This trend suggests a growing potential for citizen science to create data that can have a real impact in the way we understand, observe and manage our world and the challenges it faces. Variation in project design, survey protocols, data models, data quality, and result dissemination mechanisms can result in project data being unpublished or siloed and therefore can be overlooked or rejected by evidence specialists or analysts. A good data plan will ensure that your data are FAIR3 – meaning that they meet standards of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability. This note builds on other guidance material produced by UKEOF, especially the Advice Notes from the Data Advisory Group4 and the best practice guides from the Citizen Science Working Group5.