Systematic Review Community Science Validation

Concerns about the credibility of community science and its ability to generate valid species observations limit its use within scientific research. Pre-collection and post-validation methods can be critical in filtering community science data to ensure it produces accurate results. Twenty-four validation criteria were developed to conduct a systematic review assessing the use of community science in previous research to identify (1) the frequency that these criteria are applied, (2) how to ensure community science data collection is accurate, and (3) pre-collection and post-validation techniques that filter inaccurate data. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on community science studies using occurrence data within the last year (2021). Each study was individually reviewed to determine its inclusion in our review. For a paper to be included, it needed to satisfy three criteria: (1) the article must use or collect community science data, (2) community science is used to obtain incidental observations of a terrestrial organism, and (3) the authors of the study performed some form of pre or post-collection validation techniques to ensure their data was credible. All included studies were evaluated to determine if any of the twenty-four validation criteria were applied.