Outfall Safari impact summary

This is an impact report of the citizen science project Outfall Safari. The scores displayed summarise the results of the assessment process designed by the MICS project. For more information on how they were calculated, visit https://mics.tools

Organisers Participants Observations

Project Information

Project start date:: March 2016
Project Contacts:: Joe Pecorelli -
Project URL:: https://catchmentbasedapproach.org/learn/outfall-safari-guide/
Impact Assesment progress:: 94% complete

Rules-based scores

These scores are calculated based on a set of rules written to combine a specific set of impact metrics on the same theme into a single indicator. A higher score means the project is carrying out more activities related to the theme of the indicator and is, therefore, more likely to have a higher positive impact in this area. Rule-based scores are only calculated for specific themes. Overall assessments can be found below in the machine-learning--based scoring. Descriptions and explanations of impact indicators are provided at about.mics.tools/indicators (e.g., the score is low on economic productivity because the project did not include specific aspects related to improving efficiency). Different scores trigger different recommendations presented in the following section. Also, scores are not linked to project objectives; they try to capture a broad range of impacts even if the project does not consider or care about all of them. All scores are out of 42.

Impact Indicators		Impact score (max 42)	Average score (of projects on platform)
Society	Activeness	24	22
Society	Involvement	1	17
Governance	Policy	37	13
Governance	Sustainable Development Goals	10	16
Economy	Economic productivity	42	13
Economy	Financial sustainability	7	19
Environment	Environmental awareness	33	21
Environment	Environmental footprint	15	13
Science	Scientific productivity	17	18
Science	Interdiscplinary science	2	21

Recommendations

The following recommendations are determined by the scores the project received in the previous section. The recommendations are based on citizen-science best practice as defined in the current scientific literature and how other projects have taken action to improve their impact in specific areas. Of course, following these recommendations does not guarantee the project will suddenly have a higher impact; it all depends on the specific context of each project, but they might provide helpful inspiration.

Society	Involvement	Participants can contribute to many more phases of a project than collecting or analysing data. Think about other phases of the project participants could be involved with in the future, such as sharing the outputs or assessing impact. Remember that different participants will have different interests, knowledge and availability, so try to offer them different levels of involvement and multiple project activities to take part in.
Society	Activeness	The activeness of participants within a project is an important aspect of citizen science. Activeness depends on participants being aware that they are contributing to a project, having a lot of responsibility in the project, and being satisfied with the process of participation. This project should ensure that all aspects of activeness have been considered.
Governance	Policy	The project is among the most successful on this platform at influencing policy. Congratulations! To get a score this high, the project must already have a lot of experience interacting with policy. But if the project wants to achieve the top scores for this indicator, it will have to consider and explicitly inform governmental policy at all scales (local, regional, national and global). Additionally, the project needs to be confident it has had an impact on external organisational policy and contributed to the enforcement of existing regulations or policies. It's a lot to ask, so don't be worried if the project is happy as it is, it has already achieved a lot!
Economy	Economic productivity	It is great that the project has produced outputs that contribute to the economy through industry, commerce, innovation or technological development. If you haven't already, it might be worth considering any legal implications through a dedicated IPR plan.
Economy	Financial sustainability	If the project wants to improve its financial sustainability, it could consider creating an exploitation plan. To reduce recurring investments in technology and the cost per observation, the project could consider using open-source software and tools.
Environment	Environmental footprint	This indicator considers the project's material footprint, polluting emissions, procurement policy, and pro-environmental actions for participants (such as litter picking). The project's score for this indicator shows that the project has considered some of these elements but to get a higher score the project needs to take measures to improve its environmental footprint in all these areas.
Environment	Environmental awareness	The project clearly promotes environmental awareness, by educating participants on environmental challenges, or by contributing to participants' awareness of the natural environment through dissemination activities. Want to be able to measure participants' higher awareness, or increased stewardship? You might want to consider this paper.
Science	Interdiscplinary science	Explicitly promoting interdisciplinary ways of working could increase the impact of the project. There is evidence that interdisciplinarity is statistically significantly and positively associated with research impact (Okamura, 2019), largely through the engagement of a wider audience

Machine Learning Scores

The following scores were calculated using a statistically-driven machine-learning approach, a type of AI that learns to perform a task by analysing patterns in data. This is an experimental approach to citizen-science impact assessment, and the exact reasoning behind the scores is not explainable. The scores represent a best guess of the impact the project is having in each domain. How can you use the score? Well, this platform gives a common framework for impact assessment so you can use the scores: to see how the project's impact evolves over time; to compare the project with others; to report to funders and participants; or for your organisation's internal reporting. All scores are out of 42.