The Role of Academic Institutions in Supporting Citizen Science: A Case of Minna de Honkoku

Abstract

Open science is a new research paradigm in which "openness" of scientific data, processes, and output is emphasized for potential innovations. This paper focuses on "citizen science," which constitutes an important part of open science movements. Although citizen science enables large-scale data collection and processing with the help of a number of citizen volunteers, conducting a successful citizen science project is often beyond the capacity of a small group of researchers. We will examine what types of support can be effective for successful citizen science projects, based on our experience with Minna de Honkoku, a citizen science project in the field of historical seismology. Minna de Honkoku collaborates with citizens by inviting them to transcribe a large number of historical earthquake records. As of March 2018, 4.3 million characters, written in old Japanese, have been transcribed by over 3,000 registered users. The analysis of the development process of our project suggests that in order to promote open science projects, academic institutions need to provide support for software development and public relations.