CoActD2.4: Open Citizen Social Science Toolkit

DISCLAIMER: The present Project Deliverable has been submitted to the European Commission for review. The information and views set out in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein. 

This report presents the research, design and collaboration actions towards the programming and implementation of an open web-based Citizen Social Science Toolkit, D2.4 of the CoAct consortium. CoAct represents a new understanding Citizen Social Science (CSS) and implements new or improved science policy and action. CoAct’s research and innovation (R&I) activities respond to issues related to Mental Health Care, Youth Employment, Environmental Justice and Gender Equality in Barcelona, Vienna, Berlin, Buenos Aires and in European Eastern countries. The building of the CSS toolkit is led by researchers based at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (Fachhochschule Potsdam/FHP), Germany. The report first introduces the foundational CSS approaches that guided the multidisciplinary research approaches and methodologies represented by CoAct partners (Sections 1 and 2). It then proceeds into section 3 explaining the context for building the toolkit, namely by situating it in relation to other tool and project generator platforms within the existing citizen science and citizen social science resources. Section 4, the Development of the CSS Toolkit, is exclusively on the CoAct toolkit and explains its aim, users, structure, and envisioned use as a public knowledge platform. Here, we explain the postponement of the launch of the website on December 10 because of change of FHP staff and contractor issues. Section 5 presents concluding remarks on the overall D2.4 process.

The toolkit website has five major components. These are the landing page, the research cycle, the “key points” and “meet the experts” pages, and the plug-in as the actual toolkit presenting CSS methods applied by CoActs’ Research and Innovation actions as the “main method platform”.

The toolkit landing page is integrated in the CoAct website and accessible through its main menu. The landing page welcomes users and introduces the main function of the toolkit. It then presents short textual and visual information on the research cycle that is specific for CSS research and provides a link to its dedicated webpage. It also provides a link to the main method platform.

As a core element of the CoAct research process, the toolkit has a dedicated page for the research cycle. The research cycle is presented in a condensed form as an infographic that visually depicts the ethical, epistemic, and methodological core of CoAct with descriptions and explanations of every step of the cycle. On this page, users can interact with the infographic and access concise information on CoAct’s individual research steps and transversal topics (i.e. ethics and co-evaluation).

The “Explore the toolkit” page is a second element of the toolkit menu and home of the main method platform. This main component was designed and implemented as a plug-in to the main CoAct website by the Berlin-based contractor firm “Produktivbüro”. After multiple phases of delivery-date negotiations with them, the plug-in was launched and integrated as part of the main project website on December 10, 2022.

The method platform allows users to navigate across steps and topics to access individual methods that are assigned to steps and transversal topics. Methods are also organized and can be filtered according to resources such as duration, group size and materials-needed. Finally, toolkit users can also access to methods clustered by thematic keywords. The plug-in offers document and image upload functionalities as well as providing space for contributors to customize their entries via “open field” sections.

The toolkit is live now with active users form the CoAct consortium uploading, revising, and editing tools applied in their research and innovation actions. The toolkit is available at https://coactproject.eu/resources/toolkits/tk-landing/.