Building community in a citizen science project: fostering social interaction for meaningful engagement
When we first launched Redshift Wrangler, I focused on making the science understandable and engaging, but what I hadn’t anticipated was how important social interactions would be in keeping volunteers engaged. What kept people coming back was a sense of community, and one of the most important ways I’ve learned to foster community on our project is by making communication a two-way street. I started to realize this when I saw that volunteers who posted on our Talk boards or joined our office hours were more likely to stick with the project longer. When I responded to questions quickly and…
