Citizen Science: Theory and Practice is a new open-access, peer-reviewed journal published by Ubiquity Press on behalf of the Citizen Science Association. It focuses on advancing the field of citizen science by providing a venue for citizen science practitioners and researchers—e.g., scientists, information specialists, conservation managers, community health organizers, educators, evaluators, urban planners, citizen scientists, and more—to share best practices in conceiving, developing, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining projects that facilitate public participation in scientific endeavors in any discipline.
We believe that a central space for scholarly exchanges across disciplines will provide greater visibility for citizen science and will help to strengthen and advance this rapidly growing field. The multi-disciplinary journal will ensure that key insights and exchanges can become part of an expanding body of broadly accessible academic scholarship rather than being shared narrowly among citizen science practitioners, evaluators, and funders within their existing communication venues.
This journal is not conceived as a venue for publishing discipline-specific scientific outcomes of citizen science projects (e.g., trends in animal or plant distributions, discovery of supernovae.) We encourage researchers who make scientific discoveries using citizen science data to submit their papers to appropriate discipline-specific journals and to use the keyword “citizen science.” Scientific findings resulting from citizen science data will then reach relevant scientific audiences and help to advance varied scientific fields.
Papers are currently being accepted for review in the following categories:
- Research papers–Quantitative and qualitative research about the practice of citizen science, such as how learning outcomes differ among models of citizen science, how various features of project design yield high-quality data, efficacy of various participant recruitment models; effectiveness of varied technologies for implementing and facilitating projects;
- Review and Synthesis papers–Overviews with meta-perspectives of significant topics in citizen science such as conceptual or theoretical reviews or syntheses
- Case studies–Reports that provide evidence of how projects fare at meeting their intended outcomes for education, conservation, research, policy;
- Essays–Perspectives on issues in citizen science, particularly new ideas, controversial perspectives, and highlights of hot topics.
The journal also will include editorials, book reviews, and conference reviews, but these articles generally will be invited by the editors.
The inaugural issue of Citizen Science: Theory and Practice will be published in the summer of 2015 and will be guest edited by Heidi Ballard, University of California, Davis; Rick Bonney, Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Caren Cooper, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences; and Francois Grey, Citizen Cyberscience Centre, Geneva, Switzerland. A permanent editor or co-editors will be established by the board over the next few months.
To be considered for the inaugural issue, papers must be received by March 31, 2015. To submit a paper, or for more information, visit theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org