Do Carefully-timed Email Messages Increase Accuracy and Precision in Citizen Scientists' Reports of Events?

Periodic messages are a commonly used tactic for reminding citizen science program participants to take a desired action such as collecting observations. In this study, we evaluate the impact of such messages on the accuracy and precision of observations contributed to Nature’s Notebook, a citizen science phenology observing program.

To encourage participants in Nature’s Notebook to log the timing of leaf-out and flowering with maximum accuracy and precision, we email observers three days prior to when the events were expected to occur based on forecast models. Unplanned interruptions to the scripts driving these email prompts allowed us to evaluate whether the messages had the intended impacts.