Capability 2.2.8

Community & Citizen Science

Definition

Data generated by individuals, families and community groups through participation in scientific, civic, cultural or recreational activities. Includes contributions from citizen science projects, local environmental monitoring, sports and hobby groups, cultural associations, and neighbourhood initiatives.

Examples

ALA national biodiversity and citizen science platform managed by CSIRO. Zooniverse Australia, online hub for public participation in scientific research.

Indicators

Proportion of government or research programs incorporating citizen- or community-generated data into analysis or decision-making
Presence of ethical, privacy or data governance frameworks supporting community data ownership and reuse (e.g. CSIRO’s Citizen Science Principles, FAIR/CARE alignment)
Standardised metadata schema
Federated compliance and scalability (legal and institutional interoperability)
FAIR compliance (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable)
CARE compliance (collective benefit, authority to control, responsiblilty and ethics)
Provenance and lineage tracking
Consent frameworks
Onshore hosting and secure processing environments (e.g. SURE)
Clear licensing
Longevity and version control
Domain specific data standards
Machine readiness formatting

National AI Plan

PLAN COMMITMENT

No commitment

No specific reference to community or citizen science datasets as a distinct dataset category in the plan. Warrants attention to identify current maturity (given this capability could generate very high agency and leverage).

Stocktake

No existing research surfaced through consultation.

Is the Stocktake missing evidence?

Share additional information for potential future Assessments