Responsible engagement
Back to the principles’ overview
Responsible engagement: Co-evaluation requires appropriate and careful timing on how to assess and value project processes and outcomes. Doing it in a participatory way adds additional complexity to the whole citizen science process. Responsible engagement hence means careful planning of when to co-evaluate and how.
Recommendations:
- Start as early as possible with the involvement of project participants in the co-evaluation process, but latest during the negotiation of research questions and the design of the methodology.
- Respect the timing constraints of participants and offer multiple opportunities for the engagement in co-evaluation, both in terms of timing and methods. Align co-evaluation with activities that are happening anyway and try to make it an integral part of the whole citizen science process.
- Participants need to have the options to engage according to their needs and interests. Offer different engagement formats with respect to available time and resources. When working with young participants make sure the engagement options are truly engaging (âfunâ) to keep participants involved.
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Enrich this principle with your own experiences, expand it with fresh views, complement, challenge and critique it – and be named as a contributor to the Whitepaper if you wish so đ
I think the focus on power is so important, particularly when working with young people, and the power balances that…
I like the suggestion from PB of adaptive and early engagement. From my own experience, gaining ethical approval for a…
It is great when participants take ownership of the projects they are involved in, but does this reduce from the…
It seems to me that this principle embodies the essence of co-evaluation. Which is an action taken in order to…
This is a really important one, but perhaps also the hardest to achieve. Those marginalized perspectives are often the ones…
Being open and transparent is key in my opinion for any successful project. I would add a recommendation to include…
Thank you for organizing this consultation. It is a demonstration that you practice what you preach đ This principle is…
Forms and protocols for informed consent and similar need to be adapted for clearance from the part of ethic committees…
It is important that the extra time required is factored-in from start. Otherwise it may come as a surprise and…
With regards to this and all other principles, aspects of ethics and responsibility in all the research steps, must be…
OK with the principle. In the recommendations, I thinks “reflexivity” should be stressed more. E.g. Not only flexibility, but also…
To this I would like to add the concept of the evaluation champions/leaders/ambassadors (you can name it as you like).…
regarding this principle, I would foremost add the need to increase awareness about best practices related to personal data, e.g.…
I agree will all things mentioned under this principle. I would supplement with the need to communicate clearly and in…
I really like this one, but I would add some recommendations regarding the “letting go” of ownership from scientists or…
I love this one, super important. No comments.
I think this principle is the more specific to co-evaluation, while the rest could be standard principles for participatory research.…
I think this one is also very important, but I miss more recommendations about the empowerment aspect and how co-evaluation…
I like this one very much, and it’s already core to citizen science so it should definitively be part of…
I think that respecting the timing constraints and interests of participants is vital. Also starting evaluation as early as possible.…
This principle surely is very important, however, the timing is not always so flexible, especially in larger project, depending on the organisation of many participants. how could such a timing be translated into responsible planning of evaluation activities? should there be time buffers? should there be several different scenarios already planned for at the beginning?
also in relation to time: do you also consider the short, mid, and long-term impact here? what about timing impact assessment after the project end?
I find the principle highly important and also all associated recommendations! Regarding the “negotiation of the research question” in the first recommendation, I would suggest a specification. It is important to differentiate between the research question to be answered in the citizen science project and the research question of the evaluation. These are two different things.
I think that respecting the timing constraints and interests of participants is vital. Also starting evaluation as early as possible. But why name this principle “responsible engagement”? I would propose another name that reflects better the recommendations. Maybe something like “Adaptive and early engagement”? or “Meaningful and early engagement”? Or “Timely engagement” and leave only recommendations that relate to time.
I agree will all things mentioned under this principle. I would supplement with the need to communicate clearly and in a simple way what you want the participants to report on. I think that making it easy to provide inputs is an important element of responsible research design. After they are giving you their time and knowledge – you have at least to make it easy for them to do so.
It is important that the extra time required is factored-in from start. Otherwise it may come as a surprise and labelled as “delay” or similar
Thank you for organizing this consultation. It is a demonstration that you practice what you preach đ
This principle is about âCareful planning of when to co-evaluate and howâ â planning the co-evaluation process in a thoughtful, responsible way. I agree with all that is written, but I donât think the name âResponsible engagementâ is what this principle is really about. âResponsible engagementâ sounds to me like a requirement from participants and other stakeholders to be responsible. I would suggest changing the name of this principle to âresponsible planningâ or âthoughtful designâ or something along those lines.
I like the suggestion from PB of adaptive and early engagement.
From my own experience, gaining ethical approval for a co-designed project is a lengthy, ongoing process, and some elements of evaluation needed to be considered before ethics were submitted meaning an adaptive approach would be well suited to both consider potential ethical approaches whilst also giving the CS control from an early stage .