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The resources of the Step Change Navigator

Title

Author 

Link 

Year of publication 

Short description 

AfriAlliance handbook on data collection 

AfriAlliance project 

http://web.archive.org/web/20220127154312/https://afrialliance.org/files/downloads/2019-03/AfriAlliance_Handbook_on_data_collection_2018_ENG.pdf 

2018 

The AfriAlliance Handbook will describe how to design citizen science projects; how to implement the data collection process; how to combine the collected data with other data sources; how to analyse the data to gain insights and make informed decisions; and how to make the data openly available. 

Anecdata 

MDI Biological Laboratory, Maine, USA 

https://www.anecdata.org/ 

 

A guide for scientists and data collectors in steps on how to set up and develop a citizen science project. 

Biodiversa toolkit 

BioDiversa+ project, Belgian biodiversity platform, Belgium 

https://www.biodiversa.org/1810/download and https://www.biodiversa.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/citizen_science_toolkit.pdf 

2020 

It aimed at researchers and scientists working in biodiversity or environmental sciences who are involved or interested in involving citizens in their research projects. It includes examples and challenges, resources and bibliography. 

Citizen science for all. A guide for citizen science practitioners 

Bürger Schaffen Wissen, Germany 

https://www.buergerschaffenwissen.de/sites/default/files/assets/dokumente/handreichunga5_engl_web.pdf 

2016 

This guide describes how citizen science is practised in Germany and how this participatory approach can be used in different research disciplines and issue areas – such as education, conservation or the arts and humanities. This guide is primarily intended for those initiating citizen science projects, but also for anyone participating in such projects. 

Citizen science for local government 

Scivil, Belgium 

https://www.scivil.be/en/book/citizen-science-local-government 

2021 

The guide introduces the concept of citizen science to local policymakers. A step-by-step guide to setting up a project is included, as well as an overview of the roles a local government body can take up in different citizen science projects. Also, it focuses on data and measurement tools, success factors and potential risks. Finally, the guide is full of inspirational examples of citizen science projects. 

Citizen science guide 

LIBER Europe (Association of European Research Libraries), The Hague, The Netherlands 

https://libereurope.eu/working-group/liber-citizen-science-working-group/citizen-science-guide/ 

2021-2023 

The publication is designed to be a practical and compact gateway for the purpose of assisting research libraries to start setting up a citizen science programme. 

Citizen science project design template 

NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Australia 

https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/-/media/OEH/Corporate-Site/Documents/Research/Citizen-science/citizen-science-project-design-template.pdf?la=en&hash=7AD3B7AE50BF6708CF7E1FA1FA69B6057D48B543 

 

This toolkit is a project template, developed to help in the design, delivery and ongoing running of citizen science projects. It contains useful insights and considerations aimed at guiding users to establish and maintain a project. This includes: 

 – possible methods and tools to collect data 

 – ways to connect with participants 

 – a template to help plan core elements of a project. 

Citizen science toolkit 

CitieSHealth EU project 

https://citizensciencetoolkit.eu/ 

2022 

It presents four phases to design and implement a citizen science project. Examples and case studies to get inspiration are also presented, and there is the possibility to upload your own tool. 

Citizen science toolkit 

California Academy of science, USA 

https://www.calacademy.org/educators/citizen-science-toolkit 

 

This toolkit is designed to help educators integrate citizen science projects into classroom curricula or afterschool programming. It contains resources—including lessons, readings, and worksheets. Teaching resources. 

Citizen science toolkit 

Leave No Trace Center, Colorado, USA 

https://lnt.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Citizen_Science_Toolkit.pdf 

2019 

The Leave No Trace Center has developed this toolkit as a guide to implementing Leave No Trace citizen science programming in diverse natural areas. Groups interested in establishing their own citizen science programming are encouraged to seek consulting support from the Center. 

Citizen science toolkit for biodiversity scientists 

BiodivERsA, Paris, France 

https://zenodo.org/record/3979343#.ZC6U3OxBzvU 

2020 

The Citizen science toolkit is aimed at researchers and scientists working in the fields of biodiversity or environmental sciences who are involved or have an interest in involving citizens in their research projects. The objective of this toolkit is to inform about the potential benefits of citizen science, and to highlight rationales for doing citizen science, current best practices, and useful resources in the field. 

Citizen science tools 

Citizen Science Zürich, Switzerland 

https://lab.citizenscience.ch/en/ 

The Citizen Science Center Zurich proposes a set of tools that make it easy for scientists and citizens to engage with citizens science projects. 

Citizen sensing 

Making sense project 

http://making-sense.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Citizen-Sensing-A-Toolkit.pdf 

2018 

The guide is organised in key stages of activity with their corresponding set of cross-cutting principles, specifically geared towards projects aimed at supporting community action. This framework sets out a process that you, as community organisers, project teams, community members or individual citizens, can use as a reference guide when developing and delivering a citizen sensing project. 

Citizen science starter kit 

Eutopia project 

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7014861 

2022 

The Citizen science starter kit provides information to researchers who are new to citizen science and who are considering initiating citizen science research projects, regardless of the scientific discipline. It is a how-to guide for beginners, a foundation course, with the most essential information to get started. 

Coastal Cooperative Research Centre citizens science toolbox 

Coastal Cooperative Research Centre, Australia 

http://processarts.wagn.org/Participatory_Processes/ 

 

A free resource of over 60 principles and strategies to enhance meaningful stakeholder involvement in decision-making. Stakeholders include not only communities but also scientists and decision-makers. Meaningful involvement of all stakeholders occurs through a commitment to social learning – learning on the part of communities, other stakeholders and institutions. 

Data ethics toolkit 

Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences 

https://participatorysciences.org/resources/data-ethics/ 

2023 

This Toolkit for data ethics in the participatory sciences is a resource developed for considering ethical issues surrounding data, the bedrock of science. The toolkit aims to help project leaders understand their role as data handlers in identifying, satisfying, and/or balancing ethical obligations of a project to participants, partners, science, and society. 

Federal crowdsourcing and citizen science toolkit 

Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences 

https://www.citizenscience.gov/toolkit/# 

2015 

This toolkit shows five basic process steps for planning, designing and carrying out a crowdsourcing or citizen science project. At each step, you’ll find a list of tips you can use to keep your project on track. Resources and case studies are also available. 

Guide to citizen science 

Natural History Museum and NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology for UK-EOF, UK 

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/20678/1/N020678BK.pdf and https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam/nhmwww/take-part/Citizenscience/citizen-science-guide.pdf 

2012 

This guide aims to support people already involved in citizen science, and those new to it, within the UK. It is based on detailed information gathered and analysed as part of the UK-EOF funded project “Understanding Citizen Science & Environmental Monitoring”. It will help you to design and implement a citizen science project relating to biodiversity or the environment. 

Guide to citizen science 

University of Novi Sad, Serbia 

http://star.ff.uns.ac.rs/genius/vodic_za_gradjansku_nauku.pdf 

2022 

This guide contains practical instructions for success in creating a citizen science project. The guide’s goal is to provide everything necessary and sufficient information for project planning and implementation of civic (volunteer) science, as well as his dissemination and evaluation. 

Handbook of youth citizen social science 

YouCount project 

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10566411 

2024 

This handbook and its toolkit build on the experiences from the H2020 YouCount project (2021-2023) and represent a unique contribution to the field of citizen social science. It is, overall, an exercise on social science communication that can be useful to a wide array of publics: practitioners, academics, policymakers, youth organisations and anyone interested in citizen social science as a way of creating a future shaped by more inclusive, participatory research and social innovation. 

 

Helpful tools 

Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD), Austria 

https://zentrumfuercitizenscience.at/en/citizen-science-2/helpful-tools 

 

This is a collection of tools and resources for citizen science in different fields: a) project planning, b) project creation, c) apps development, d) do-it-yourself tools, e) volunteer computing, f) editing of texts, images, audio and videos 

Helping you do great science 

Citizen science platform Colorado University, USA 

https://www.citsci.org/ 

 

This tool helps users to create projects, build data sheets, collect data, and view results in real-time. 

A manual for citizen scientists starting or participating in data collection and environmental monitoring projects 

Harvard Law School, Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, USA 

https://citizenscienceguide.com/sites/default/files/images/Citizen%20Science%20Manual%20March%202019%20_FULL%20VERSION_0.pdf 

2019 

This manual aims to empower individuals in their roles as citizen scientists and to promote the practice of community-based citizen science as a vehicle for environmental justice. This manual outlines practical suggestions for how to design and carry out a citizen science project. 

Models to identify background factors associated with the citizen science activity 

CS Track project 

https://zenodo.org/record/6005549#.YwSPMexBzvX 

2022 

It summarises the characteristics of citizen scientists, discusses how learning and knowledge building occurs and explicates the structure and basis needed to build models that illustrate the associations between background factors and different forms of citizen science activities. 

Mutual learning exercise on citizen science initiatives. Policy and Practice 

EU Commission 

https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/statistics/policy-support-facility/psf-challenge/mutual-learning-exercise-citizen-science-initiatives-policy-and-practice 

2023 

The Mutual learning exercise aims to facilitate the exchange of information, experiences and lessons learned, as well as to support and scale up citizen science through identifying the good practices, policies and programmes of the various approaches at local, regional and national level, towards supporting and scaling up citizen science. Another objective is to identify citizen science campaigns that have high potential to be implemented in a collaborative way across the European Research Area. 

Participatory science toolkit against pollution 

Action EU project 

https://actionproject.eu/toolkit/ the pdf is here: https://actionproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ACTION_Toolkit_11.04.2022.pdf 

2022 

This toolkit features four steps to design and implement a citizen science project on pollution. Resources and masterclasses are also available. 

Practicing citizen science in Zurich – Handbook 

Citizen Science Center Zurich, Switzerland 

https://citizenscience.ch/files/handbook_november%202021.pdf 

2021 

This handbook is a practical guide on how to successfully design and run co-created citizen science projects, with some specific tips for practitioners in Zurich. The handbook is organised in parts that can be seen as a sequence of consecutive steps, or can be accessed at one’s convenience for suggestions and recommendations on different aspects of designing, implementing, and running citizen science projects. 

Self-assessment checklist 

citizenHeritage project 

https://www.citizenheritage.eu/self-assessment-checklist/ 

2023 

This tool was developed for institutions in the process of planning an activity with cultural heritage collections that includes citizen participation in the light of collecting feedback and inputs from local communities, seniors, students, amateurs. 

Time4CS reflection tool 

TIME4CS project 

https://zenodo.org/record/7022933#.ZEp4lexBxaQ 

2022 

The TIME4CS reflection tool for institutional changes in citizen science is dedicated to anyone that would like to pursue sustainable institutional changes towards citizen science. 

Toolbox for citizen engagement 

PREP4BBLUE project 

https://prep4blue.eu/portfolio/toolbox-for-citizen-engagement/ 

2023 

The toolbox supports the design and application of deliberative democratic mechanisms to organise and manage the process of citizen mobilisation and engagement, as well as provide practical advice and case studies useable by project teams tasked with supporting such participation. 

Tools for measuring outcomes and evaluating citizen science 

Cornell Lab of Ornithology, New York, USA 

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/citizenscience/measuring-outcomes/ 

2014 

This guide is designed for practitioners who seek 

 assistance in evaluating outcomes from their citizen science projects, which are also known as Public 

 Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR) projects. 

Weobserve cookbook 

WeObserve project 

https://www.weobserve.eu/weobserve-cookbook/ 

2021 

The WeObserve cookbook is designed as a guide to help citizen observatory practitioners access existing resources that can help them in setting up and/or running a Citizen Observatory.