eBirding: Technology Adoption and the Transformation of Leisure into Science

Abstract:

The decreasing cost of technology and Internet access has resulted in increasingly large-scale scientific research projects that rely on technology-mediated public participation. This poster takes a process theory perspective to discuss how technology adoption in a citizen science project influences participation and thereby scientific outcomes. The case study finds that some birders change their established practices upon adopting eBird, an online checklist program for bird observations, because the additional effort supports individual satisfaction and community recognition. This dramatically increases the value of the data for research, promoting improved scientific outcomes