Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31246950›Full record

ArticlePLoS biology2019

Improving big citizen science data: Moving beyond haphazard sampling.

Corey T Callaghan, Jodi J L Rowley, William K Cornwell, Alistair G B Poore, Richard E Major

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS biology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
34citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

34 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Estimating the Abundance of Widely Distributed Primates.American journal of primatology · 2025
    Review
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Ten best practices for effective phenological research.International journal of biometeorology · 2023
    Review
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Corey T CallaghanCentre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.ORCID 0000-0003-0415-2709
Jodi J L RowleyCentre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
William K CornwellCentre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.ORCID 0000-0003-4080-4073
Alistair G B PooreEcology and Evolution Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.ORCID 0000-0002-3560-3659
Richard E MajorAustralian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.ORCID 0000-0002-1334-9864

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Citizen science is mainstream: millions of people contribute data to a growing array of citizen science projects annually, forming massive datasets that will drive research for years to come. Many citizen science projects implement a "leaderboard" framework, ranking the contributions based on number of records or species, encouraging further participation. But is every data point equally "valuable?" Citizen scientists collect data with distinct spatial and temporal biases, leading to unfortunate gaps and redundancies, which create statistical and informational problems for downstream analyses. Up to this point, the haphazard structure of the data has been seen as an unfortunate but unchangeable aspect of citizen science data. However, we argue here that this issue can actually be addressed: we provide a very simple, tractable framework that could be adapted by broadscale citizen science projects to allow citizen scientists to optimize the marginal value of their efforts, increasing the overall collective knowledge.

Indexed as

Citizen ScienceCommunity ParticipationHumansKnowledgeScienceSelection Bias

Identifiers

PMID31246950
PMCPMC6619805

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.