Working group for quality criteria

The working group for quality criteria was established to create criteria for the platform that are as objective, traceable and, above all, publicly visible as possible.

Head: Florian Heigl and Daniel Dörler, BOKU University

At the annual platform meeting of Österreich forscht on 1 March 2017, the partners decided to set up a working group on quality criteria for citizen science projects. This became necessary because, due to new funding programmes and the level of awareness of citizen science that has been achieved in the meantime, more and more projects consider themselves as citizen science, which also requested to be included in Österreich forscht. Up to this point, projects were examined by the platform coordinators for consistency with the different definitions of citizen science before they were accepted. In order to create objective, comprehensible and, above all, transparent criteria for the future, the working group for quality criteria was founded. The working group consists of project leaders and partners of Österreich forscht and is headed by Florian Heigl and Daniel Dörler.

Goals

1. Development of binding quality criteria for citizen science projects on Österreich forscht - successfully completed
   At the Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2018, the finalised quality criteria were presented. From March 2017 to February 2018, a total of 20 criteria were created to which all projects on Österreich forscht had to adapt. You can read about how this process was designed and what impact it had on Österreich forscht in an article in Citizen Science:Theory and Practice.
2. Continuous assessment of incoming project listings on Österreich forscht - ongoing
   After the criteria were finalised, the listing process was described transparently on Österreich forscht. The working group has set itself the goal of continuously reviewing the incoming applications for listing and providing assistance in fulfilling the criteria. The aim is to conduct a dialogue with the project leaders, which will lead to a positive result.
3. Creation of supporting material- ongoing
   In order to prevent misunderstandings in the interpretation of the criteria and to make the listing process as simple as possible, supporting material (e.g. FAQs) should be developed.

Hintergrund

The Österreich forscht platform (www.citizen-science.at) was founded in 2014 with the aim of (1) networking citizen science stakeholders in Austria, (2) providing as comprehensive an overview as possible of citizen science projects in Austria, and (3) generally developing the citizen science methodology.

Since 2017, many institutions active in citizen science have joined forces in the Citizen Science Network Austria on the initiative of the Österreich forscht platform and have committed themselves to promoting the quality of citizen science in Austria.

An important step towards promoting quality was the establishment of transparent criteria that projects wishing to be listed on the Österreich forscht platform must fulfil. The aim of these criteria is to ensure and further improve the quality of the projects presented on the platform. The currently valid catalogue is the third version (1.2) of the criteria.

From March 2017 to February 2018, a working group of the Österreich forscht platform, consisting of representatives from 17 institutions, developed version 1.0 of the criteria, which enable a transparent evaluation of projects that want to be listed on Österreich forscht. In addition, the criteria should enable citizen scientists to make an informed decision about whether they would like to participate in the project.

Version 1.0 of the Quality Criteria was presented to the public at the 4th Austrian Citizen Science Conference (ÖCSK) from 1-3 February 2018. The Quality Criteria became valid on this day.

Suggestions for changes to the criteria were already made by those present at the 2018 ÖCSK, and these were incorporated into version 1.1 by the working group immediately afterwards. As a result, from 13 October 2023, all Österreich forscht projects will comply with the quality criteria of version 1.1.

During the development of the quality criteria, it was decided that they should continue to be adapted to new challenges and developments. The version number of the criteria to which a project conforms can be found on the project page.

In version 1.2, in particular, the criteria on ethical aspects in citizen science projects have been adapted to current developments in 2024. The current version was published on 10 February 2025.

Publications of the working group for quality criteria

• You can download the quality criteria catalogue version 1.2. in German and English, as well as the corresponding questionnaire in German.
• You can find a blogpost on the quality criteria in the Nature scientific journal from 8 November 2017.
• You can find a blogpost on our article on the quality criteria in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) scientific journal from 23 April 2019. This also includes a Letter to the Editor by Auerbach et al., as well as our reply by Heigl et al.
• You can find our article on the development process of the criteria in Citizen Science:Theory and Practice.

More links

Quality criteria for citizen science projects at the University of Münster

Criteria for Citizen Science Projects at the Citizen Science Center of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich

If you have any questions about the quality criteria, please feel free to contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..