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Short Abstract

The use of outdoor apps to recruit citizen scientists is examined based on challenges established on Outdooractive, askingparticipants to take forest photos for research on ecological forest conditions. Their experiences, motivation, participation behavior and interest in further tasks are surveyed.

Abstract

As part of the MeineWaldKI project, this study aims to find ways to attract potential participants and increase participation rates. This approach examines whether collaboration with established outdoor navigation platforms (such as AllTrails, Komoot, or Outdooractive) would be suitable for attracting and retaining citizen scientists. These platforms have an existing community of people who enjoy spending time in nature, making them a potentially ideal place to reach people who may be interested in supporting scientific research in the field of nature conservation.

For this new research method, two challenges were offered on the Outdooractive platform, in which photos of forest structures were to be taken for later use in forest research. After participating in the first challenge, participants were asked about their motivation, participation behavior, and interest in further citizen science tasks. Preliminary results suggest that many participants recognize the poor condition of forests and want to support research on the forest condition. Many have never been active as citizen scientists but are interested in becoming more involved in similar citizen science related challenges in the future, even if these tasks were to take up more of their time. Based on these results, a second challenge is currently being offered until mid-November, which will also be evaluated using a survey. This will allow a comparison of the acceptance of challenges as citizen science tasks. Additionally, the success of two different challenge approaches, as well as the spill-over of participants from one challenge to the next will be analysed and presented.