Page 70 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 44

ZHAO Yuxiang / A preliminary exploration on citizen science projects based on scientific crowdsourcing perspectives: 069
Conceptualization, pattern design and research opportunities

scientific research (Niu et al., 2017). As mentioned above, if the nature of scientific crowdsourcing
can be traced back to an open innovative concept, then the nature of citizen science projects based
on scientific crowdsourcing can be defined as a value co-creating system in which the public and
scientists will solve various scientific tasks through direct or indirect cooperation and collaboration.
Therefore, the business model of citizen science projects from the perspective of scientific
crowdsourcing should be diversified and heterogeneous. But there are few academic studies on
this aspect up to now. This paper endeavors to build the classification system of citizen science
projects from two dimensions, so as to classify and summarize relevant citizen science projects.
One dimension will follow the three types of scientific crowdsourcing summarized above, namely
non-emergent type, quantitative emergent type and qualitative emergent type, which is not to be
further stated; another dimension will focus on the environment in which citizen science projects
are conducted. Due to different project objectives and task situations, the specific implementation
scenarios of citizen science projects also vary greatly. At the same time, as this paper defines citizen
science projects as a group participation and collaboration model based on the Internet, the macro
environment in which public scientific develops is divided into two categories, namely online
environment and online-offline environment. The former means that all tasks can be completed
on the Internet or mobile Internet and there is no need for offline operations and interventions;
the latter indicates that in addition to the online task, participants are required to perform a series
of tasks offline, for example data collection and sample collection, and a successful task should
comprise both online and offline parts and both are indispensable. In view of this, this paper
constructs six types of business models for citizen science projects, as shown in figure 2.

5IF FOWJSPONFOU PG DJUJ[FO TDJFODF QSPKFDU 0OMJOF PGGMJOF 0OMJOF )FSCBSJVN .JUUFO DSBC $IJSTUNBT CJSE DPVOU
$IJOFTF GJFME
"JS RVBMJUZ FHH
&WPMVUJPO NFHBMBC
3FDPSEJOH QSPKFDU
F#JSE
5FBUJNF TDJFODF

5SBOTDSJCF TIFOH QSPKFDU
(BMBYZ [PP
'PMEJU
.JOH HPWFSONFOU
%JE ZPV GFFM JU
0ME XFBUIFS
0GGJDJBM UJUMFT
"SUJHP
7FSCDPSOFS
2VBOUJUBUJWF
/PO FNFSHFOU UZQF "HFHVFTT 2VBMJUBUJWF FNFSHFOU UZQF
FNFSHFOU UZQF
$BUFHPSJFT PG TDJFOUJGJD DSPXETPVSDJOH
Figure 2. Business model of citizen science projects.