We are excited to introduce the next professional development opportunity offered by the iDigBio Digitization Academy: Public Participation in Digitization of Biodiversity Collections.
This free, online course is focused on public participation in science as it relates to digitization and research using biodiversity specimens. Public participation in science is sometimes referred to as citizen science, community science, or crowdsourcing.
The aim of the course is to empower participants with the knowledge and skills to successfully (1) identify and address the opportunities and additional complexity that public engagement introduces to a digitization project at a biodiversity collection, including ethical and legal factors, (2) design a public engagement in digitization project, including budgeting and risk management, (3) identify, evaluate, and use tools and online platforms in a public engagement in digitization workflow, (4) identify and implement quality management strategies, (5) identify common participant motivations and strategies to recruit and engage participants in a project, including events, games, and online forums, (6) and perform evaluation of a public engagement in digitization project.
This course is targeted at those already associated with a biodiversity collection, such as student technicians, collections managers, curators, affiliated educators, or administrators. The course will be relevant to a diversity of collection types. Participants do not need to have prior knowledge of public participation in science, only a desire to use it as part of their future research or digitization activities.
The course will occur from December 6–9 (Monday–Thursday) from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. Participants can expect to spend three hours per day in synchronous meetings and as much as two additional hours of preparation time per day outside of class. So this is about a 20-hour time commitment. We expect to cap the course at 20 participants and will make admission decisions based on the relevance of the training to the future of the applicant’s organization and a desire to engage a diversity of perspectives. The course will be delivered in English. Those interested in participating from outside the US are welcome to apply.
You may apply to participate in this course at: https://forms.gle/avUwqtCDTcU9i5DU6. Applications are due by 8 a.m. ET on Monday, November 15. Admission decisions will be made by November 17. Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Michael Denslow at michael.denslow@gmail.com. This course is brought to you by iDigBio (https://www.idigbio.org) and will be taught by Michael Denslow, Erica Krimmel, and Austin Mast.
