Miss Janice Ansine
Senior Project Manager Citizen Science
School of Environment, Earth & Ecosystem Sciences
Biography
As Senior Project Manager Citizen Science, at The Open University (OU), I manage projects that use innovative, easily accessible web-based tools and resources to engage and help anyone participate and learn about science, including the award winning iSpot (www.iSpotnature.org) and Treezilla, the monster map of trees (www.treezilla.org).
An experienced STEM and environmental science communicator, I disseminate and share best practice supporting the STEM Faculty's and University's citizen science, engagement, impact and related strategic activities. My responsibilities also include supporting citizen science in teaching, wider OU public engagement, communications, outreach and open science initiatives (see: OpenSTEM Labs: OpenScience Laboratory).
I hold a B.A. (Hons) and Diploma (Hons) in Media and Communication (UWI, Jamaica), an MSc in Environmental Change & Management (Oxford), an MSc in Science & Society (OU) and I am currently completing a Doctorate in Education (EdD) in Technology Enhanced Learning (OU).
I am a former environmental reporter, communications consultant, Reuter Fellow, Chevening Scholar - UNEP-WCMC Research in Biodiversity / Visiting Scholar (Cambridge). This varied experience has developed into a wide-ranging background leading communications, public engagement, outreach and behaviour change initiatives around sustainability and the environment. I also have project management certification and training in management coaching.
I am a highly skilled project manager having successfully merged my wide-ranging qualifications, skills, interests and experience to deliver an extensive portfolio of work. Through my role I have contributed to the growth and success of citizen science at the OU managing and / or contributing to a number of initiatives funded by multiple funders, relationships across a range of partners, research teams and coordinating delivery across different units / departments, organisations and stakeholders.
I coordinated the OU team’s delivery in Cos4Cloud and lead WP6 (Networking, Training, Education and Capacity Building) managing work facilitating evidence-based knowledge exchange, learning and engagement around citizen science. I also coordinated collaborative working between partners with core responsibilities for these areas. As Researcher Co-I for the Human-computer collaborative learning in citizen science project I contributed to iSpot related research in school-based citizen science learning about pollination. As Co-I on DECIDE I codesigned stakeholder engagement approaches with iSpot end users.
Also while coordinating Treezilla project delivery, I am a Co-I on the recently funded Branching Out project. Leading on citizens engagement, I am contributing to the development of approaches which engage and make connections between communities, citizens and other stakeholders in understanding the value of treescapes. I also support relationships working across a number of partners and stakeholders i.e. contributing to the successful delivery of a standardised framework to collate tree data.
Projects include:
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Research interests
Over the years through my research interests I have contributed knowledge exploring the use and impact of blended approaches i.e. online tools communications, multimedia, etc.; implemented alongside informal and formal learning (Ansine, 2013). I have contributed to OU research in crowdsourcing biological identification in citizen science (Silvertown et al, 2015), technology enhanced learning and teaching focused on the use of mobile technology in citizen science to facilitate practical STEM learning (Woods et al, 2017). I lead research on how online citizen science supports teaching and learning, identifying a five-step framework from participation to recognised learning actions: explore, identify, contribute, personalise and recognition (Ansine et al 2017). I also contribute to evolving areas in citizen science practice and research i.e. citizen science and artificial intelligence: https://citsci.kmi.open.ac.uk . At the OU I also share citizen science best practice a member of research groups: i.e. Open Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) and Citizen Inquiry and Ecosystem Science.
My research experience includes environmental change and ecological footprinting, biodiversity communications, sustainable development and science communications. This is built on earlier work as an environment newspaper reporter iand Reuter Fellow researching the ecological impacts of Jamaica’s tourism in Jamaica (MSc, Oxford, 2000). I explored biodiversity and human development themes and led a communications campaign and strategic project (including a series of posters and fact sheets) complementing UNEP WCMC work on the Convention on Biological Diversity as a Chevening Scholar and Visiting Research (Cambridge, 2003). As a British Council Darwin Now Awardee (2009) I implemented a research project focused on public outreach and engagement on biodiversity and Charles Darwin’s legacy expressed through Jamaican arts and culture.
I also explore relationships between citizen science and science communication analysing initiatives that use a combination of tools for engagement, public participation and understanding of science and building on this contributed to a successful initiative connecting young people with researchers in a school-university partnership initiative (Holliman, 2018). All of these These interests shape my ongoing research investigating participation in citizen observatories and online communities of practice, while contributing ideas and developing engagement approaches for a range of citizen science initiatives.
I am interested in research around citizen science and learning (including arts-based engagement and culture). As well as public involvement and engagement with science and nature supported by blended approaches incorporating online tools, multimedia, engagement, citizen science, informal and formal learning around biodiversity. While working, I am pursuing my Doctorate in Education (EdD) with the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET), at the OU, in the area of Technology Enhanced Learning. My current research topic focuses on Exploring Citizen Science Learning Journeys: a case study of iSpotnature.org.
See more research publications in Open Research Online here:https://oro.open.ac.uk/view/person/ja4865.html.
Teaching interests
I contribute to citizen science teaching and informal learning, for example I am co-author of Citizen Science & Global Biodiversity, an OU OpenLearn Badged Open Course: www.open.ac.uk/citizen-science-and-global-biodiversity.
Impact and engagement
As an experienced citizen science practitioner and researcher, I collaborate, codesign, co-create and share my expertise nationally and internationally. I coordinate iSpot’s involvement in national policy investigations in biodiversity (e.g. pollination monitoring and the State of Nature Report). I am a founding member of the UK Tree Health Citizen Science Network (THCSN) and contribute to knowledge exchange. I was a contributor to the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) 10 principles of citizen science (Robinson, et al, 2018) and currently chair the Sharing Best Practices and Capacity Building Working Group.
I share my skills and expertise sitting on various research project steering group / committees e.g. I sit on the project advisory board of REINFORCE: Research Infrastructures FOR Citizens in Europe project (www.reinforceeu.eu/ and was also a member of the Citizen Science Cost Action CA15212 As a member of the Citizen Science Association (https://citizenscience.org ) I collaborate and network with a range of stakeholders internationally. I am impacting on STEM learning in Africa, as part of an innovative project integrating OU Virtual Lab technology in STEM teaching.
I have an excellent understanding of how to inform and engage diverse communities to participate and encourage further understanding and engagement in environmental matters. For example, I developed and led implementation of public outreach and engagement programme with a focus on engaging with ‘hard to reach’ groups’. I managed delivery through a UK-wide team of 13 iSpot Biodiversity Mentors the programme reaching over 80,000 beneficiaries, overachieving on targets set.
I was an advisor on the UKRI funded Opening Up Science for all project and led the OU’s contribution to the NERC Community for Engaging Environments project providing expertise on citizen science as a Critical Friend. NC4EE used a range of approaches combining community development, storytelling and citizen science, to enable communities across the UK to have a meaningful stake in discussing and tackling environmental science issues such as climate change and pollution. The OU was one of over 30 partners including universities and other organisations collaborating with diverse communities on issues in environmental science.
Projects
A Natural Heritage project to Preserve, Protect and Plant Urban Trees (in Wales)
Urban Trees are amongst the most versatile natural assets that can be used to cost effectively raise the quality of Welsh towns and cities. However most recent studies show that 73% of urban areas in Wales have lost trees since 2010 and between 2006 and 2013 7,000 trees were lost, which suggests an ongoing erosion of Wales' Victorian and Edwardian tree legacy. This project, led by the Women's Institute (WI) in Wales, in collaboration with partners including the OU through Treezilla - the Monster Map of Trees (www.treezilla.org), seeks to play a part in helping to reverse this decline. With its large, locally connected membership, the WI will participate in assessing the state of urban trees, by promoting active management, providing eyes and ears for public bodies and taking action to safeguard this incredibly valuable natural heritage. Using tools including Treezilla, they will survey, observe, preserve, protect and engage communities in tree-planting and on-going monitoring and maintenance, and spread the word about the value of trees to the wider public. They will also provide some of the ‘ground-truthing’ required and feed useful information back to such public bodies such as Natural Resources Wales and Local Authority planning departments, to inform their policies and plans, and to ensure that this natural heritage is protected and prospers for the future health, wellbeing and safety of communities and generations to come.
COMMUNITREE: Connecting tree databases to the public, improving urban tree data for business, government and research
Forest Research as the lead this is an application to InnovateUK for further developments on Treezilla, essentially improvements to the websites that underpin the database and apps. Forest Research are the lead with possible partners Birmingham City Council and Amey.
TreeLab: a novel, engaged, urban forest research programme
This project brings together an inclusive leadership team that includes leading researchers in urban forestry, citizen science and engaged research to co-create a proposal for the development and implementation of TreeLab: a framework and delivery programme for an engaged, and collaborative world-class urban tree research project that will co-produce an evidence base for urban tree management. We will co-create the TreeLab concept through TreeLab:MK, using the city of Milton Keynes and engaging its communities of tree managers, publics and researchers in the development of a place-based nationally and internationally relevant research programme for phase 2 of this call.
Branching out: New routes to valuing urban Treescapes
Urban trees contribute many valuable things to society. Some of these, like carbon storage, are relatively easy to measure and assign a value to, while others, such as cultural or historical value, are less tangible. The Branching Out project is a major interdisciplinary project led by Loughborough University and including the Open University, University of York and Forest Research that will investigate a wide range of social and cultural values of urban trees. The project will use participatory methods to understand what diverse communities value about urban trees and map these values across urban areas using citizen science and the latest satellite imagery analysis methods. By working with urban tree managers we will be able to improve the management of urban forests to maximise their benefits to society.
Walking the Walk: Co-producing approaches to diversifying participation in Earth and environmental science education and careers
For many people working in the environmental sciences today, the first spark of interest in the field came from experiences in nature. Whether walking, hiking or visiting the coast, immersion in the natural world can often plant the seeds of curiosity that lead to a lifelong desire to know more about how and why it works. In the UK, much of the natural “the countryside” is perceived as an overwhelmingly “white” space, hostile to people from non-white backgrounds. Not only does this mean that for many that seed is never planted, but the lack of familiarity with experiences in “the outdoors” means the fieldwork seen as necessary for an environmental education (and commonly required for accredited degree programs) presents a barrier to degree level study. This is a major problem for the field, as environmental impacts such as those driven by climate change affect everyone. Financial, cultural and opportunity barrier to accessing the outdoors, are recognised by both environmental organisations and grassroots groups. This project will bring together environmental scientists and grassroot community groups to tackle barriers in order to make outdoor learning accessible to all. We will test approaches to bring environmental science learning directly to those trying to make the UK countryside a more inclusive environment and learn from the experiences of both environmental scientists and activist groups in spending time immersed in nature.
Publications
Book Chapter
Ten Principles of Citizen Science (2018)
Exploring citizen science and inquiry learning through iSpotnature.org (2017)
Supporting Mobile Learning and Citizen Science Through iSpot (2015)
Reaching the public through iSpot: your place to share nature (Case Study 8.5) (2012)
Journal Article
Differences between urban and rural hedges in England revealed by a citizen science project (2016)
Crowdsourcing the identification of organisms: a case-study of iSpot (2015)
Presentation / Conference
Exploring taxonomic and geographic spread of iSpot citizen science observations (2023)
iSpot & AI: Integrating FASTCAT-Cloud and PI@ntNET-API in the Cos4Cloud framework (2023)
Developing online citizen science learning communities: from dabblers to super users (2020)
OpenSTEM Africa: Strengthening science education in Ghana (2020)
iSpotnature.org: building and maintaining a citizen science community for biodiversity (2018)
iSpot: a citizen science platform for inclusive learning and teaching (2018)
Using a citizen science tool to model the health benefits of roadside trees (2017)
Report
Individual Tree Data Standard (2021)
Engaging Opportunities: Connecting young people with contemporary research and researchers (2018)
