Periodic Reporting for period 3 - COS4CLOUD (Co-designed Citizen Observatories Services for the EOS-Cloud)
Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2023-02-28
Cos4Cloud (Co-designed citizen observatories for the EOS-Cloud) is a European Horizon 2020 project to boost citizen science technologies.One of the biggest challenges of citizen science is the quality of data, as well as maintaining the citizen observatories used to collect this data. Cos4Cloud is addressing these challenges by developing thirteen technological services to improve citizen science platforms, also known as citizen observatories, to help them boost the quantity and the quality of observations and, finally, to help ensure their long-term viability. The services have been co-designed with key stakeholders and carefully tested with end-users in real scenarios. Almost all the services that Cos4Cloud has developed are available in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), a virtual space aimed at the European scientific community, so anyone interested in creating or improving their citizen observatory can use them.
Our core mission is to improve citizen observatories' technologies to help them increase the quantity and the quality of observations and, finally, to help ensure their long-term viability. In order to achieve this overall goal Cos4Cloud is aimed to the fulfilment of the following objectives:
The innovative 13 services developed in Cos4Cloud contributed to improve citizen science data quality and have been designed, prototyped, and implemented using deep machine learning, automatic video recognition, advanced mobile app interfaces, and other cutting-edge technologies, based on data models and data protocols validated by traditional science. The new services provide mechanisms to ensure the visibility and recognition of data contributors and the tools to improve networking between various stakeholders. The design of new services has been user-oriented and carried out within a broad spectrum of co-design and testing workshops, engaging a wide range of stakeholders from society, government, industry, academia, agencies and research, who have helped to co-design the service’s requirements.
Apart from these technological services, Cos4Cloud has produced materials and other outputs for citizen science and the European Open Science Cloud communities. We can highlight the following results:
- Creation of the first national education community network merging citizen science with environmental education and the creation of educational training resources to train teachers in how to introduce citizen science in the classrooms.
- Cos4Cloud have produced and made available in Zenodo the 'Co-Design as a service methodological guide' which aims that anyone interested in co-design can implement in their own citizen science or software development projects by following this document.
- The Cos4Cloud Toolbox and Evidence Hub: includes training and capacity-building resources, best practice guidelines, educational resources, case studies and a space for reflection on the content provided avalaible at https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/index.php?categoryid=592&cid=dis-5337517398
Cos4Cloud has created an interactive infographic to understand the Cos4Cloud journey, achievements and results, available here: https://cos4cloud-eosc.eu/infographic/
The innovative 13 services developed in Cos4Cloud contributed to improve citizen science data quality and have been designed, prototyped, and implemented using deep machine learning, automatic video recognition, advanced mobile app interfaces, and other cutting-edge technologies, based on data models and data protocols validated by traditional science. The new services provide mechanisms to ensure the visibility and recognition of data contributors and the tools to improve networking between various stakeholders. The design of new services has been user-oriented and carried out within a broad spectrum of co-design and testing workshops, engaging a wide range of stakeholders from society, government, industry, academia, agencies and research, who have helped to co-design the service’s requirements.
Apart from these technological services, Cos4Cloud has produced materials and other outputs for citizen science and the European Open Science Cloud communities. We can highlight the following results:
- Creation of the first national education community network merging citizen science with environmental education and the creation of educational training resources to train teachers in how to introduce citizen science in the classrooms.
- Cos4Cloud have produced and made available in Zenodo the 'Co-Design as a service methodological guide' which aims that anyone interested in co-design can implement in their own citizen science or software development projects by following this document.
- The Cos4Cloud Toolbox and Evidence Hub: includes training and capacity-building resources, best practice guidelines, educational resources, case studies and a space for reflection on the content provided avalaible at https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/index.php?categoryid=592&cid=dis-5337517398
Cos4Cloud has created an interactive infographic to understand the Cos4Cloud journey, achievements and results, available here: https://cos4cloud-eosc.eu/infographic/
Cos4cloud is pioneering the integration of citizen science in the EOSC. By the end of the project the services Pl@ntNet-API, Cos4Bio, MOBIS, AI-GeoSpecies, FASTCAT-Cloud and AUTHENIX are registered in EOSC Marketplace, and Cos4Env, DUNS, AI-Taxonomist, GBIF-DL and FASTCAT-Edge are planned to be uploaded soon. Any existing citizen science observatory can select and install from the EOSC the technical services needed to improve its functionalities. The impact of the citizen science component in Cos4Cloud has been studied following the methodology developed by the EU-funded project MICS. According to the MICS project, Cos4Cloud scored highest in the Environment domain; with scores of 40 for environmental awareness – the attitude regarding environmental consequences of human behaviour – and 32 for environmental footprint. The MICS platform notes that Cos4Cloud goes to great lengths to promote environmental awareness and educate participants on environmental challenges (through the sustained efforts of WP8 Communication, Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement); and to measure improvements in participants' environmental attitudes, behaviour and knowledge (as part of activities in WP5 COS4CLOUD services in practice, and WP6 Networking, Training and Capacity Building). Cos4Cloud also scored highly in the Science and Technology domain, with 37 for scientific productivity and 33 for interdisciplinary science. This reflects the high number of peer-reviewed publications produced by the project, and the highly collaborative nature of the Cos4Cloud team; with technological developers working alongside social scientists and educators. The project scored well in both the Economy and Society domains. Cos4Cloud scored an impressive 42 for economic productivity, indicating an explicit improvement in economic productivity through “diversification, technological upgrading and innovation”; specifically, the creation of thirteen new services for citizen observatories. The project scores 26 for financial sustainability, due to a combination of positive aspects – the use of an exploitation plan, for example – and less positive economic aspects, such as the need for recurring investments in the technology developed. Cos4Cloud scored 34 and 30 for activeness – the level of cognitive engagement in participating citizen scientists – and involvement – the degree of participation in different stages of a process – respectively. This reflects the highly collaborative co-design and testing process that formed part of the development of the thirteen services, and their incorporation into citizen observatories. Regarding the impact assessment of Cos4Cloud in terms of the socio-economic impact, we can highlight in the societal dimension the creation of the first national education community network merging citizen science with environmental education, a network with more than 500 at the time of the end of the project. In the scientific and technological dimension, Cos4Cloud has set a precedent in using co-design in the context of citizen science and technology, as well as integrating co-design and Agile Methodologies to develop innovative citizen science services. This impact has been demonstrated to practice in the co-design of the Cos4Cloud services and with the the almost 1,000 views of the co-design guide in Zenodo and almost 500 downloads of the infographics on the Cos4Cloud website. Two city councils, one in Bogotá (Colombia) and another one in Barcelona (Spain) have used Cos4Cloud research and services for official purposes and that also shows the valuable impact that Cos4cloud could have in the future in the agency dimension. Finally, in the environmental dimension of impact, Cos4Cloud has helped to record more than 40,000 observations and created new standardised, qualified, cost-effective citizen science datasets for environmental sustainability. In summary, Cos4Cloud has positively impacted society, science and technology, policies, economic, and environmental dimensions. All indicators and impact products show that the project meets all the requirements for its impact to continue growing beyond the project's lifetime.