The White House Releases Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit
Although designed for Federal agencies the toolkit might include ideas and concepts of use to infoDOCKET readers.
From the NARAtions Blog Post (via National Archives and Records Administration):
{Yesterday,] the White House officially launched the Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit, a tool that provides information and resources to help federal agencies use the power of public participation to help solve scientific and societal problems.
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In support of today’s event at the White House, we’ve created a special “science takeover” in our Citizen Archivist Dashboard. Here you will find several new tagging missions, all containing science-related records from the National Archives.
Read the Complete NARA Post
The toolkit includes the following sections:
- How To
- Case Studies
- Resource Library
- Law and Policy
More From an Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Blog Post:
The toolkit, which was developed by OSTP in partnership with the Federal Community of Practice for Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science and GSA’s Open Opportunities Program, reflects the input of more than 125 Federal employees from over 25 agencies on ideas, case studies, best management practices, and other lessons to facilitate the successful use of citizen science and crowdsourcing in a Federal context.
OSTP also announced:
OSTP Director John Holdren, [issued] a memorandum entitled Addressing Societal and Scientific Challenges through Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing.
This memo articulates principles that Federal agencies should embrace to derive the greatest value and impact from citizen science and crowdsourcing projects. The memo also directs agencies to take specific actions to advance citizen science and crowdsourcing, including designating an agency-specific coordinator for citizen science and crowdsourcing projects, and cataloguing citizen science and crowdsourcing projects that are open for public participation on a new, centralized website to be created by the General Services Administration: making it easy for people to find out about and join in these projects.
Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Dashboards, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.