Lessons from Projects that have Cultivated Advanced Participation
Guest post by Sadie Coffin, 2025 Association for Advancing Participatory Science and NASA Fellow. Originally published in the Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences blog on April 24, 2025.
What makes volunteers feel empowered and motivated to bring their own ideas and expertise to the table? How do project leaders support and nurture extraordinary efforts, contributions, interests, or collaborations from volunteers?
One of the most exciting aspects of citizen science is how often volunteers go far beyond what’s expected of them, making unique contributions that significantly impact the project and contribute to scientific discovery in creative ways. Through the NASA Citizen Science Leaders series, I’ve been learning how project leaders intentionally create the conditions that empower these extraordinary contributions. This post shares strategies and reflections from these conversations. My goal is to highlight specific structures and mindsets that you can try in your own project to support deeper engagement with volunteers, whether that takes the shape of mentoring newcomers, taking on technical tasks, or joining research publications.
Key takeaways:
Supporting advanced volunteers isn’t about assigning more roles or designing specialized tasks, it’s about creating an environment of trust, curiosity, and collaboration. This includes: encouraging volunteers to bring their own ideas, creating intentional spaces for collaboration and conversation, and structuring pathways for volunteers to publish, mentor others, or develop tools based on their expertise and interests.
This post reflects what I’ve learned thus far from project leaders and advanced volunteers who have spoken in the NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series. If you’re interested in hearing directly from experts and volunteers, check out these past series event recordings: “Extraordinary contributions” recording, “Effective collaboration with more advanced users” event, Co-authoring papers: examples, lessons learned, tips for success, and “Accelerating the pace of discovery in your project” presentation.
Off-Piste Contributions: Creating Space for Creative Contributions of Citizen Scientists
Many “off-piste,” or off-the-beaten-path contributions on projects come from an invitation rather than a specific request. Volunteers often take on unexpected roles or make discoveries that even surprise project leaders. In Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, volunteer Dan Caselden developed the WiseView tool, not because it was assigned, but because the team welcomed his creativity and his ideas (Dan Caseldon, Extraordinary contributions of citizens scientists). In Disk Detective, volunteers became key contributors by making resources like tutorials and participating in observing runs (Marc Kuchner, Presentation: Accelerating the pace of discovery in your project, Hugo Durantini Luca, Extraordinary contributions of citizen scientists).
Based on the stories shared in the Leaders Series, these are some practices that stood out:
Responding enthusiastically to volunteer questions or comments, especially unexpected or outside-the-box ones, can open the door to collaboration,
Facilitating regular communication through channels like regular Zoom meetings, active Talk forums, advanced user groups, or moderated chat channels helps establish low-barrier, low-pressure ways for people to share ideas and start conversations,
Naming volunteers as collaborators: when volunteers are treated as teammates and not just helpers they often bring new solutions, tools, or analyses
These kinds of open, collaborative environments not only invite creative contributions but make it more likely that volunteers will feel empowered to take initiative, share ideas, and push the project in exciting new directions.
Supporting Volunteer Publishing
Publishing with your volunteers requires structures that support them. Some successful approaches shared in the series include:
Pairing interested volunteers with professional researchers to co-author papers and learn the publishing process together (Jackie Faherty, Co-authoring papers: examples, lessons learned, tips for success).
Providing clear steps/scaffolding and professional skill-building opportunities. This might be as simple as sharing free online resources on how to write scientific papers. It can be as sophisticated as the NASA Science Activation-funded summer internship program run by the Center for Space Research in collaboration with GLOBE Observer. In the STEM Enhancement in Earth Sciences internship, students start with blog posts and work their way up to conducting analysis of GLOBE Observer data and sharing their results in posters and peer-reviewed publications. A similar structured approach can also help volunteers build both confidence and expertise over time (Rusty Low, Co-authoring papers: examples, lessons learned, tips for success).
Using collaborative tools like Google Docs, Slack channels, or Github repositories to make co-writing more accessible. Some projects even provide channels for volunteers to organize their own chat groups where they can share ideas, draft content, and support each other (Karl Battams, Co-authoring papers: examples, lessons learned, tips for success).
Creating these kinds of pathways can invite volunteers to not only contribute data, but to offer their skills and talents to improve your project’s operations and productivity.
Volunteers as Mentors and Community Builders
Beyond contributing data or publications, many advanced volunteers play key roles in community-building and mentorship. Projects like Disk Detective and Planet Hunters TESS have promoted volunteers to be community moderators, content creators, and informal mentors (Els Baeten, Extraordinary contributions of citizen scientists & how to invite these in your project). While I originally thought of mentorship as something to offer to advanced volunteers, I’ve come to see that many advanced volunteers can and want to mentor other volunteers. You can support this by:
Giving advanced users space and platforms to share their insights (through Zooniverse Talk forums, Slack channels, blogs, featured volunteer spotlights),
Inviting them to host their own events or create their own tutorials and content,
Publicly recognizing and crediting their contributions to each other and to creating a collaborative, welcoming tone for the project.
For some volunteers, these opportunities to mentor and contribute creatively are just as meaningful if not more so than contributing data alone. Encouraging this kind of leadership can help to retain and spread the knowledge of your most experienced volunteers, with significant benefit to your science.
Applying these Lessons
Creating space for deeper volunteer contributions can benefit both your science and your community, and it doesn’t have to require a huge investment of time or infrastructure. You can start to support advanced contributions using tools you may already be using, like structured meetings, shared documents and collaboration tools, or community discussion forums. Establishing clear communication about opportunities, inviting feedback, and showing genuine interest in the perspectives and skills that your volunteers bring can help build both volunteer commitment and satisfaction.
Here are some specific next steps I’m planning based on what I’ve learned:
Hosting targeted office hours on topics of interest chosen via a survey sent in our newsletter and shared on our project site,
Inviting advanced volunteers to host their own office hours or Q&A sessions on topics they have mastered, both to celebrate their growing expertise and to share their knowledge,
Continuing to welcome collaboration on data analysis and publications, using shared google docs and regular updates on the work advanced users are contributing,
Creating public spaces for volunteers to suggest tools, share their own ideas, or ask research questions, such as in a new Talk board thread on Zooniverse.
Working on Redshift Wrangler has shown me just how passionate and creative volunteers can be when they’re given space to explore and engage with the science. I’m excited to create more opportunities for volunteers to share their skills and perspectives, and I’m especially inspired by how other projects have built strong communities with large groups of advanced volunteers. Seeing examples from Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, Disk Detective, Planet Hunters TESS, Sungrazers and others has encouraged me to think more intentionally about how to support volunteers who want to go beyond basic classifications and contribute in deeper ways.
This post reflects what I’ve learned thus far from project leaders and advanced volunteers who have spoken in the NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series. If you’re interested in hearing directly from experts and volunteers, check out the “Extraordinary contributions” recording, “Effective collaboration with more advanced users” event, and “Accelerating the pace of discovery in your project” presentation.