National project · Citizen science research
Project Q
An online experiment to find out whether citizen science also works for the social sciences
About the project
Project Q was a research project based on an online survey experiment. Its website was The Lab (thelab.ibercivis.es).
Ibercivis had years of experience running citizen science experiments in other disciplines, but this kind of research was still underdeveloped in the social sciences. Project Q set out to test how far citizen participation could be put to use in this field.
The platform opened on 10 July 2014 and stayed open until enough participants had taken part. Anyone aged 18 or over with an email address could join. The questionnaire took about 40 minutes and could only be completed once. One in ten participants received, by prize draw, a small reward in shopping vouchers.
Project objectives
- Assess to what extent citizen science can be used in social science research.
- Gather behavioural data from a large sample of the public through an online experiment.
- Provide knowledge for designing future research in this field.
The role of Ibercivis
The research team was made up of Antonio M. Espín (University of Granada), Pablo Brañas-Garza (Middlesex University London) and Anxo Sánchez and Yamir Moreno (BIFI, University of Zaragoza; Sánchez also at Carlos III University of Madrid).
Fundación Ibercivis was responsible for software development (Julio Arenere and Francisco García), web design (Nekane Abuelo), communication and prize management (Mari Carmen Ibáñez) and coordination (Fermín Serrano).
Our activities
- Development of the experiment platform based on the Swarm Survey tool, with the code published openly (projectQ on GitHub).
- A public call for participants and management of the prize draw among them.
Project details
Type of project
National
Duration
2014
Consortium
Fundación Ibercivis, Carlos III University of Madrid, BIFI (University of Zaragoza), University of Granada and Middlesex University London
Area
Citizen science research