NASA Citizen Science Community Handbook: A Resource for Scientists Who Are Creating and Leading Projects, Version 3.0

I’m delighted to share here the newly updated NASA Citizen Science Community Handbook: A Resource for Scientists Who Are Creating and Leading Projects. Bookmark that link! Full of links to resources, videos, and examples, this handbook is best used online, not printed. This is a LIVING document and will be updated regularly (if you have a suggestion for an update, change, or addition, send it to me in an email!).

This handbook is written first and foremost for scientists and teams who are proposing, designing, building, or managing citizen science research efforts in NASA Science Mission Directorate’s five science divisions and consistent with NASA’s priorities and policies. That said, there are many resources, tips, and best practices that might be useful to anyone involved in, or interested in, participatory science research, including:

• Tips for recruiting and engaging with volunteers.

• Templates for collaboration agreements, community norms, codes of conduct.

• Strategies for supporting data quality, data management.

• Project design tools and guidance, including advice on how to pick a platform.

• Ideas for how you can welcome and cultivate a group of super-volunteers to accelerate your project’s scientific productivity.

Use this handbook in whatever way works for you. I suggest that you begin by breezing through the 2-page Table of Contents and the 1-page Quick Start Guide. Use the table of contents, document tabs, or conduct word searches to find the information you need when you need it. 

Special thanks to all the people who have contributed ideas, content, edits, and resources to this guide over the years! That said, any errors in it are mine — please bring them to my attention so I can fix them!