Discover Citizen Science through Open Science

What is citizen science?

Citizen Science is the inclusion of members of the public in some aspect of scientific research

The term usually refers to any form of active amature participation in science going beyond professional research. On the other hand

Open Science is an “umbrella term encompassing a multitude of assumptions about the future of knowledge creation and dissemination”, especially regarding technological infrastructure, accessibility of knowledge creation, access to knowledge, measurement of impact and collaborative research.

According to the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) the adoption of open science approaches and policies can benefit widely Citizen Science by increasing its visibility and opportunities for collaboration, ensuring data persistence, and securing its legacies and impacts in scientific research and policy.

ECSA sees citizen science as an open, inclusive approach and supports the exploration of how citizen science should be understood and practised, and help to shape different aspects of the citizen science movement, in Europe and around the world. ECSA’s mission is to connect citizens and science; to promote sustainable development through citizen science; and to ensure that citizen science contributes to policy processes.

Combining Citizen Science and Open Science will benefit to address grand challenges and respond to diminishing societal trust in science. In addition it will contribute to the creation of common goods and shared resources, and facilitate knowledge transfer between science and society aiming at stimulating innovation.

Beyond the lab
Through the OpenAIRE-Advance project, we will learn, try out and promote Citizen Science pracrtices. We will run a two-phase pilot for schools (reaching out to a network of 10,000 schools in Europe) to show the potential of OpenAIRE as a discovery outlet, and as a platform where students can share scientific data from ongoing H2020 science projects they participate in.
With our partners, EllinoGermaniki Agogi (GR) and Ciência Viva (PT), we will involve educators with the ultimate aim to compile (i) a “lessons learnt” report on how to improve OpenAIRE services to reach the public, and (ii) a roadmap on how OpenAIRE can engage at the local/national level to support a culture of openness around data.

Open Schools Journal for Open Science

Educating students in open science
The newly established “Open Schools Journal for Open Science”, managed by Ellinogermaniki Agogi and supported by the National Data Centre in Greece as well as the Open Schools for Open Societies network (OSOS), is the first European peer review scientific journal created for and curated by students. The Journal accepts original papers written by school age students from Primary to Secondary schools across Europe under the mentoring of their Teachers on all aspects of Science, Engineering and Technology.
Read more

Schools Seismic Data

Seismological data gathered by school students
Schools across Europe install their self-made seismographs and study data, do analysis of real situations and real earthquake phenomena in real time.  These schools “act locally but think globally”, developing student projects and activities that are presented publicly and meet local needs, drawing upon local expertise and experience in the community outside of school. The aim is eventually schools to become hubs of information, innovation and education for their communities on the theme of earthquakes risks and prevention mechanisms. More information on Schools Study Earthquakes here.

Zenodo integration

Zenodo citizen science
ZENODO, OpenAIRE’s catch-all repository, will host schools communities interested on modern physics enabling schools to discover the most recent publications and relevant data for their projects. OpenAIRE introduces students across Europe to the notion and the importance of open data. Data collected by the schools seismographs will be stored in HELIX, the Greek national data service. A preview of this service is here.

The First Phase of the Hackquake !

Athens, October 31st, 2019
 
The first phase of the first Hackquake was completed on Saturday, October 12, 2019, at the premises of Ellinogermaniki Agogi. The participating teachers had the opportunity to attend an extremely interesting presentation by Dr. Houliaras, from the Institute of Geodynamics, during which the basic concepts of earthquakes were understood and the importance of early warning in emergencies was also highlighted.
 
Continuing, Mr. Spiros Athanasiou, the Infrastructure coordinator of Hellenic Data Service (Helix project), guided the participating teachers through the basic structures of HELIX in detail and worked together in the area that hosts open data from the school seismograph network that EA with the Institute of Geodynamics have developed in 5 countries. Data, which can be exploited in a variety of ways by the learning community, but on the Hackquake Day participants observed how this data through the Python programming language could develop an early warning system.
 
After brainstorming and developing an extremely creative discussion, organizers and participants renewed their appointment for the second phase of Hackquake, where teachers will come back this time with their students to work on computers and manage to develop an early warning system. Participants will work as teams and the best team will win a school seismograph.
 
The workshop was organized by the Institute of Geodynamics, the National Observatory of Athens, the ATHENS Research and Innovation Center, the ELLAAK Organization and Ellinogermaniki Agogi in the framework of SNAC, OPENAIRE and OSOS projects co-funded by the European Union.

Hackquake!

Athens, October 12th, 2019

How can we make use of the seismic data provided by schools? What if students are given the challengeon how to provide insights to distant places and send warnings to other scools? Hackquake is organized to show how Open Science and open data can be used to benefit society and at the same time to trigger and include students in the process.

For the hackquake, OpenAIRE works in cooperation with Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Athena Research Center, Helix- Hellenic Data Service and Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS).

 Learn more and apply till October 3rd 2019!

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OpenAIRE has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreements No. 777541 and 101017452 (see all).

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