Taxonomy of Data Quality Metrics in Digital Citizen Science

Abstract

Data quality is key in the success of a citizen science project. Valid datasets serve as evidence for scientific research. Numerous projects have highlighted the ways in which participatory data collection can cause data quality issues due to human day-to-day practices and biases. Also, these projects have used and reported a myriad of techniques to improve data quality in different contexts. Yet, there is a lack of systematic analyses of these experiences to guide the design and of digital citizen science projects. We mapped 35 data quality issues of 16 digital citizen science projects and proposed a taxonomy with 64 mechanisms to address data quality issues before, during and after the data collection in digital citizen science projects. This taxonomy is built upon the analysis of literature reports (N = 144), two urban experiments (participants = 280), and expert interviews (N = 11). Thus, we contribute to advance the development of systematic methods to improve the data quality in digital citizen science projects.