Citizen Science Competency Framework
A competency framework for citizen science researchers and practitioners.
The CitSciComp was developed as a collective effort between different target groups (researchers, CS practitioners among others) to identify competencies that characterise participatory research/citizen science (PR/CS) researchers and practitioners. It was built with various and different existing competency frameworks, namely the European Competency Framework for Research (ResearchComp) and the engagement of 163 individuals from the PR/CS community, through an adapted Delphi method, to adjust these frameworks to cover PR/CS.
CitSciComp has seven competency areas with a total of 34 competencies. Each of these competencies is further divided into different levels (foundational, intermediate, advanced, and expert) defined by sub-competencies.
Applications
This CitSciComp can have multiple applications across a wide range of institutional and individual contexts:
- For training design and curriculum development, to guide and support teachers and educators in creating a syllabus and designing training. The training can be a general introduction to PR/CS or for a specific domain/sub-domain for example.
- As a career development guide to assist people who want to become practitioners or researchers in PR/CS to identify the skills that they would like to develop, and plan a career development.
- To support organisational capacity mapping, assisting people in organisations who want to start PR/CS activities to identify the competencies that they already have in the organisation, or in developing a job description for a researcher or practitioner that they would like to hire.
- Providing guidance on competency and skills progression (learning paths) throughout a career of professionals in the area of PR/CS, for individuals, teams and institutions.
- Assisting in labelling and sharing open educational resources (OER) in PR/CS, by identifying the domain and level or competency for which it is intended.
The ECS Academy alongside other learning hubs can help you gain competencies you have identified of interest to develop as a PR/CS practitioner and/or researcher.
Recording of a Dive-in Session into the CitSciComp: get to know the process of creating the CitSciComp and how to read it.