When Human-Computer Interaction Meets Community Citizen Science

TL;DR

This paper introduces Community Citizen Science (CCS), a novel approach integrating human-computer interaction to empower communities in sustainability efforts and sustain engagement beyond researcher involvement.

Contribution

It proposes CCS as an alternative to traditional top-down methods, fostering community-led scientific knowledge production and long-term social impact.

Findings

CCS enhances community engagement in sustainability projects.

It promotes sustained participation beyond initial interventions.

CCS bridges the gap between research and social issues.

Abstract

Human-computer interaction (HCI) studies the design and use of interfaces and interactive systems. HCI has been adopted successfully in modern commercial products. Recently, its use for promoting social good and pursuing sustainability, known as sustainable HCI, has begun to receive wide attention. Conventionally, scientists and decision-makers apply top-down approaches to lead research activities that engage lay people in facilitating sustainability, such as saving energy. We introduce an alternative framework, Community Citizen Science (CCS), to closely connect research and social issues by empowering communities to produce scientific knowledge, represent their needs, address their concerns, and advocate for impact. CCS advances the current science-oriented concept to a deeper level that aims to sustain community engagement when researchers are no longer involved after the intervention of interactive systems.