Had it not been for the attentiveness of one person who went beyond the task of classifying galaxies into predetermined categories and was able to communicate this to the researchers via the online forum, what turned out to be important new phenomena might have gone undiscovered.
Sometimes our attempts to improve data quality in citizen science projects can actually work against us. Pre-determined categories and strict regulations could prevent the reporting of important outliers.
However, very little has been published in the academic literature about the factors that influence people to take part in citizen science projects and why participants continue their involvement, or not.
What do we know so far? Where are clear areas where research can be done to improve our understanding of this?
A training session was not carried out by the authors for the Asian Longhorned Beetle Swimming Pool Survey, a project specific to New York State.
Why was there not a training session for this specific project?