Crowdsourcing and citizen science help federal agencies to innovate, collaborate and discover. In this toolkit, you will learn how to design and maintain projects. You can also read through case studies and access additional resources related to communities that practice crowdsourcing and citizen science.
The benefits of citizen science and crowdsourcing are many. Citizen science and crowdsourcing enable research at large geographic scales and over long periods of time in ways that professional scientists working alone could not easily duplicate. Public participation extends research into places that would otherwise be difficult to reach, from the top of high-altitude glaciers to our own microbiomes.
The U.S. Federal Community of Practice on Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science (CCS) meets monthly to share lessons learned and develop best practices for designing, implementing, and evaluating crowdsourcing and citizen science initiatives. Learn more about the CCS (https://www.digitalgov.gov/communities/federal-crowdsourcing-and-citize…)