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Strategic Objective
Build the capacity of the Nation to address societal challenges using a suite of formal, informal, and broadly available STEM educational mechanisms.
Strategic Objective
Overview
NSF has the opportunity and responsibility to leverage our research and education activities to engage the public and help citizens develop a better understanding of science-- one that can inform opinions about issues faced in daily living, in participation in the democratic process, and in helping to advance science. Formal education through the Nation’s K-12 schools provides the foundation for citizens’ understanding of STEM and its uses in addressing the needs of society. This learning continues for those who further their education in the Nation’s colleges and universities. Informal education is another powerful means to provide learning and instill interest in STEM topics in everyone throughout their lives. Technology holds promise for new pathways to learning, including personalized learning. By investing in research and development on STEM education and learning, NSF extends the reach of our programs to the public.
Read Less...Progress Update
The Strategic Review examined the role that Public Participation in STEM Research (PPSR) can play in advancing science and engineering and increasing the participation of the U.S. population in science and engineering broadly. PPSR is an overarching category for projects that involve partnerships between professional scientists and amateurs and always involves the public’s participation in at least some aspects of genuine STEM research. Activities known as “citizen science” and “crowdsourcing science” are both included. The field of PPSR has evolved rapidly from a focus simply on data collection toward a more collaborative enterprise, where participants are increasingly involved in more aspects of the research process.
1. How is ‘Public Participation in STEM Research’ (PPSR) defined?
2. How can NSF’s investments in PPSR be characterized?
3. What cutting-edge investments might NSF make to advance PPSR?
Citizen science has taken place for centuries in a variety of fields (e.g., Christmas Bird Count, lighthouse weather data, and astronomical observations) but has grown significantly in the past decade, in part due to new technological tools. Similarly, crowdsourcing science refers to processes in which open calls are made for voluntary contributions to STEM problem-solving. These calls are typically either to a non-specified group of individuals ("the crowd") or to individuals with specific expertise, thus leveraging the skills and knowledge of many (e.g., Foldit1, EyeWire2).
The motivation for PPSR, whether citizen science or crowdsourcing science, may be derived from community concerns or may be scientist-led. We have chosen to follow the field in calling these activities PPSR in order to clarify that the focus is on participation in STEM, and should not be confused with an activity that focuses on any individual’s (or group’s) nationality. In addition, we are using “STEM” in lieu of “Scientific” (i.e., “Public Participation in STEM Research”) to ensure recognition of this approach in all areas of science and engineering supported by NSF.
PPSR projects have both scientific and educational value. Without public participants and their contributions, some research would not be practical or even possible (e.g., projects requiring data collection from many geographical locations or over long periods of time, or projects requiring analysis of large sets of visual or numeric data). Moreover, PPSR provides opportunities for people of all genders, races, ethnicities, ages, and geographic locations to learn how STEM research is conducted and to engage in it directly. The level of public involvement varies from being contributory (e.g., collecting and recording data) to collaborative (e.g., analyzing samples and discussing results) to co-created (i.e., in which the public might be involved in all phases of the scientific process from defining the question for investigation, to experimenting, analyzing, and reporting results).
An analysis of NSF awards active in October 2014, identified 187 projects that included elements of PPSR. Approximately 50 new awards have been funded each year from FY 2012 to FY 2014. Thematically, investments in all disciplines aimed to increase data quality. Development of mobile technologies for sensing and data collection was an interest primarily centered in awards from ENG, CISE, BIO, EHR, and GEO. Not surprisingly, collecting data over large geographic and/or temporal scales was a theme in BIO and GEO awards, whereas understanding how PPSR engages people surfaced as a theme in SBE and EHR awards. A minority of awards contained aspects related to security and privacy (particularly in CISE) or enhancing and measuring learning (particularly in EHR).
Through its awards, NSF has played a seminal role in supporting the expanding field of PPSR in terms of science, technology, and learning. For example, building on NSF investments, the growing community of practice has formed a Citizen Science Association and a new Citizen Science: Theory and Practice journal. To continue to advance PPSR, NSF should consider investments in the following:
• Support the Growing PPSR Community of Practice. The field of PPSR has evolved rapidly from a focus simply on data collection toward a more collaborative enterprise, where participants are increasingly involved in more aspects of the research process. NSF should invest in efforts to support this community in terms of recruitment, networking, training, data reporting, authorship, and assessment.
• Advance the Technologies and Tools of PPSR. To continue to promote greater levels of public involvement in PPSR, the development of more user-friendly, robust, and affordable sensors for STEM research should be promoted. As more public participants become collaborators in scientific research, many issues related to networking, data management and access, data quality, and crowd-sourced analytics, as well as their scale-up, will need to be addressed.
• Investigate the Contributions of PPSR to Learning. NSF broke ground by funding projects that recognized learning as a key outcome of PPSR projects. The learning aspect of PPSR needs additional study to understand the demographics and motivations of participants, the extent and nature of STEM learning and engagement, and the most effective strategies for broadening participation in STEM through PPSR experiences.
• Assess the Potential of PPSR to Enable New Fields of Discovery Research. With the opportunity to reach more people and therefore collect and analyze data sets more extensively than possible through the efforts of scientists alone, PPSR may go beyond simply enhancing our ability to do traditional STEM better. PPSR enables us to pursue entirely new avenues of research that can only be achieved through public-scientist collaborations. The different cultural perspectives and habits of mind that public participants can bring to bear on the interpretation of data may also open new avenues of research. This potential is worth exploring.
Opportunities for Action or Improvement
NSF should take the next steps to promote theoretical and empirical research leading toward a ‘Science of PPSR.’ Analogous to developments in learning in the past, PPSR is moving from a type of activity to be supported to a way of doing research and learning that needs to be understood. The steps in this direction, in priority order, are to:
• Support a workshop on PPSR learning & broadening participation
• Encourage, through existing programs, advances in sensors and communication/data management infrastructure for PPSR.
In their cross-cutting assessment of the Strategic Review results, the PIO and COO determined that activities initiated in response to these recommendations should be tracked as an Agency Priority Goal.
1 https://fold.it/portal/
2 http://blog.eyewire.org/about/
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Strategic Goals
Strategic Goal:
Stimulate Innovation and Address Societal Needs through Research and Education
