Training for Librarians

In this section, we have gathered examples of online training opportunities. There is something for everyone, be it short introductory courses that cover general topics in citizen science or longer training courses that require more time and effort.

Citizen Science for Librarians: Self-paced Learning Course

One of the outputs of the LibOCS project was creating a self-paced online course for librarians. The course comprises five modules:

Citizen science and the role of libraries, providing basic knowledge of CS concepts, their development, and the role of university libraries in building sustainable relations between the scientific community and society;
Skills for librarians involved in CS projects, explaining skills that a librarian should have to be a mediator between volunteers and researchers in a CS project and to be the initiator or designer of a CS project;
Project management skills for CS, presenting key aspects of project management, team building, timing, and risk management in the context of CS;
Engagement and communication in CS projects, delving deeper into the practical aspects of creating communication strategy in CS projects, communicating science to the public, and recruiting volunteers to CS projects;
Research and data management skills for librarians involved in CS projects, training library staff capable of providing qualified support for research data management to participants in CS projects.

You can find the course here. The course can be entered and completed either with logging in with a Google/local account or without it. LibOCS project partner KTU Library has made a brief introductory video, if you want to know more about the course before starting.

EU-Citizen.Science Training Platform

EU-Citizen.Science platform has a section with training modules and MOOCs available for everyone. Registration on the EU-Citizen.Science Moodle platform is required. Start browsing here.

SciStarter

Another well-known platform is SciStarter, which offers training modules for librarians about citizen science. Learning outcomes will include knowledge about the types of citizen science projects, the skills and the ways to advance real-world research. For example, their training module “Libraries as Community Hubs for Citizen Science” helps identify resources and strategies that will help train library staff to recruit and sustain patron engagement in citizen science. SciStarter may change their courses from time to time, so you can check regularly if there is anything new.

But useful study material can be found outside well-known organisations as well. A short online course “Citizen Science and Scientific Crowdsourcing: an Introduction” explains practical aspects of designing and running citizen science projects. It is possible to learn about the technical aspects of citizen science projects, how to make projects participant-centred, how to manage volunteers, what is user-centred design and human-computer interaction, what are the issues regarding data in citizen science, what is environmental citizen science, and what are the ethical and legal issues in citizen science.