Table 1 An overview of citizen-science... | Emerald Publishing

Table 1

An overview of citizen-science projects' attributes from the realist literature review

Citizen-science attributes	Mechanisms	Main outcomes	Main references
Crowdsourcing	Web-based platforms and infrastructures to recruit and retain citizen scientists in professional-led research projects; limited degree of lay people involvement in the co-design of research activities	Training of machine learning technologies to foster big data analytics	Katapally et al. (2018), Meakin et al. (2019)
Distributed intelligence	Web-based platforms and mobile devices are concomitantly exploited to enable lay people to perform data collection and data analysis in a perspective of distributed inquiry; alongside hard mechanisms, some soft mechanisms are implemented to ensure lay people training and durable involvement	Creative collective thinking and lay people increased awareness of health-related issues	Kovacic et al. (2014), Lee et al. (2018)
Participatory science	Web-based platforms and digital tools are primarily exploited to establish a co-creating relationship between lay people and expert scientists; soft mechanisms are significantly used to boost the establishment of fair exchanges between citizen scientists and expert scientists	Innovative idea generation and advancement of individual and collective health-related knowledge	Den Broeder et al. (2018), Katapally et al. (2020)
Extreme citizen science	Web-based platforms gather lay people who led research initiatives that are intended to push forward scientific knowledge; soft mechanisms are primarily aimed at creating citizen scientists' motivation and engagement in citizen science	Establishment of a community-based and collaborative model of care based on personalized medicine and openness	Kempner and Bailey (2019), Ashepet et al. (2021)

Citizen-science attributes	Mechanisms	Main outcomes	Main references
Crowdsourcing	Web-based platforms and infrastructures to recruit and retain citizen scientists in professional-led research projects; limited degree of lay people involvement in the co-design of research activities	Training of machine learning technologies to foster big data analytics	Katapally et al. (2018), Meakin et al. (2019)
Distributed intelligence	Web-based platforms and mobile devices are concomitantly exploited to enable lay people to perform data collection and data analysis in a perspective of distributed inquiry; alongside hard mechanisms, some soft mechanisms are implemented to ensure lay people training and durable involvement	Creative collective thinking and lay people increased awareness of health-related issues	Kovacic et al. (2014), Lee et al. (2018)
Participatory science	Web-based platforms and digital tools are primarily exploited to establish a co-creating relationship between lay people and expert scientists; soft mechanisms are significantly used to boost the establishment of fair exchanges between citizen scientists and expert scientists	Innovative idea generation and advancement of individual and collective health-related knowledge	Den Broeder et al. (2018), Katapally et al. (2020)
Extreme citizen science	Web-based platforms gather lay people who led research initiatives that are intended to push forward scientific knowledge; soft mechanisms are primarily aimed at creating citizen scientists' motivation and engagement in citizen science	Establishment of a community-based and collaborative model of care based on personalized medicine and openness	Kempner and Bailey (2019), Ashepet et al. (2021)