Title: Conceptual Frameworks for Building Online Citizen Science Projects,
Abstract: In recent years, citizen science has grown in popularity due to a number of
reasons, including the emphasis on informal learning and creativity potential
associated with these initiatives. Citizen science projects address research
questions from various domains, ranging from Ecology to Astronomy. Due to the
advancement of communication technologies, which makes outreach and engagement
of wider communities easier, scientists are keen to turn their own research
into citizen science projects. However, the development, deployment and
management of these projects remains challenging. One of the most important
challenges is building the project itself. There is no single tool or
framework, which guides the step-by-step development of the project, since
every project has specific characteristics, such as geographical constraints or
volunteers' mode of participation. Therefore, in this article, we present a
series of conceptual frameworks for categorisation, decision and deployment,
which guide a citizen science project creator in every step of creating a new
project starting from the research question to project deployment. The
frameworks are designed with consideration to the properties of already
existing citizen science projects and could be easily extended to include other
dimensions, which are not currently perceived.