Evaluation

Overview | Concept | DIYbio | Workshops | Exhibition | Evaluation | Conclusion

Apart from the scientific result – A Public BioBrick – we also wanted to find out what participants learned from the collaboration, how it has helped the community forwards and how in-depth the collaboration was.

Depth of Collaboration

One of the important evaluation criteria for citizen science projects is the “degree of participation”, ie. how involved the citizen science collaborators were at different stages of the project. We designed a simple survey (adapted from "Public Participation in Scientific Research: a Framework for Deliberate Design", see reference) that each collaborator filled in after the workshops.

The results are a validation of our approach: both iGEMers and Biohackers felt they contributed in equal parts towards the collaboration.

References

Shirk, J. L., H. L. Ballard, C. C. Wilderman, T. Phillips, A. Wiggins, R. Jordan, E. McCallie, M. Minarchek, B. V. Lewenstein, M. E. Krasny, and R. Bonney. 2012. Public participation in scientific research: a framework for deliberate design. Ecology and Society 17(2): 29.