Epistemological challenges of citizen science

Responsable - Roberto Casati

Public - M1/M2

Dates - 2022/2023

Citizen science is a game changer when it comes to environmental and in particular biodiversity measures, providing density of observations an order or two of magnitude above traditional sampling procedures : examples abound, from www.blitzortung.org to www.inaturalist.org initiative to the Cornell lab of ornithology (eg. the birdnet application https://birdnet.cornell.edu/ identifying birds by sound.) Scalability is the main issue, and smartphones have been the main enhancer of scalability : they are ubiquitous, include easily hackable captors, and have an inbuilt capability of interfacing with data centers. Marine citizen science has specific challenges. An equipped smartphone is not enough when it comes to sampling water. Players are stratified (sailors, the military, merchant ships, etc.).

On the background of the BiOcean5D EU-funded project, following the Tara TREC expedition, and in the framework of a CNRS funded PhD project on citizen science, we study the deployment of frugal marine captors (the planktoscope, www.planktoscope.org) on a fleet of private sailboats, and address some of the epistemological challenges of citizen science in complex and challenging environments : profiles and motivation of citizen scientists, ergonomy, data quality, , temporalities, reputation and expertise.

(MasterPhilo ; Biology)

Working language will be French or English