Presentation from Apples and Oranges panel at WikiSym 2011, focused on comparing citizen science and open source as models of open collaboration.

1. Open Source &
Citizen Science
A. Wiggins
WikiSym, 5 October 2011

2. A Tale of Two Contexts
• Free/open source software development
• Software production
• Often cited as inspiration for a variety of
forms of subsequent open collaboration
• Citizen science
• Scientific research
• Direct engagement in doing science, not just
understanding it or making decisions about it

3. FLOSS
• Free software, open source software, OSS, free
and open source software, FOSS, libre
software, logiciel libre
• Linux
• Mozilla
• Etc, etc, etc...

4. Citizen Science
• Public participation in scientific research,
volunteer monitoring, participatory action
research, science shops, civic science, people’s
science, action science, community (based)
science, living labs
• Galaxy Zoo
• eBird
• RiverWatch

5. Similarities
• Project-based organizing
• Distributed voluntary work
• Open to almost anyone
• No such thing as a “typical project”
• Additive work with minimal coordination requirements
• Sequential vs. pooled interdependence
• Primarily “scratching an itch” but may also be vocational
• Process transparency
• Virtuality, in terms of geographic & temporal discontinuities

6. Contrasts
• Domain of practice
• Software engineering vs. scientific research
• Licenses and ownership
• FLOSS known for its copyleft licenses but most citizen science not
explicit about ownership or licensing
• Expertise requirements
• Supposedly not required for either, but this is a lie!
• Contributions
• Software code, bug reports, feature requests vs. data collection
and/or processing tasks
• Virtuality, in terms of physicality
• Most citizen science requires interacting with the “real world”