Where To Find help

Answering questions on the platform

Q: Should I answer questions based on what my project has achieved so far, or what we hope it will achieve in the future?

A: You can do either. At the start of a project, you might want to use the assessment as a forecasting tool. At the end of the project, you might want to assess the impact you actually achieved. Whatever you decide to do, just answer the questions consistently; your impact assessment report will be much more useful this way. Remember, you can change your answers at any time, to assess the impact of your project as it evolves.

Q: My project is a large umbrella project, under which there are different citizen-science pilot projects; should I answer the questions as the meta umbrella project or as the pilot sub-projects?

A: You can do it as the meta umbrella project or as any of the sub-projects, or both. Just make up your mind at the beginning and then answer the questions consistently.

Understanding impact scores

Q: Why do the rule-based scores and AI scores differ? (For example, the rule-based scores for society indicators “activeness” and “involvement” are high, but the AI scores my project low for the whole society domain).

A: Rule-based 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. For example, “activeness” - the level of participants’ cognitive engagement – is made up of three specific impact metrics:

How much responsibility is offered to the participants? – with the answer “a lot” scoring highest;
Are the participants satisfied with the process of participation in the project? – with the answer “yes, and it has been measured” scoring highest;
Are participants aware they are contributing to a research project? – with the answer “yes” scoring highest.

A project might provide the best answers for these three questions and score highly for the “activeness” indicator.

However, the society domain consists of 67 questions, with the AI analysing the answers to all of them; as well as the answers to questions across all domains. The AI scores are calculated using a statistically-driven machine-learning approach, with the AI analysing patterns in data. This is an experimental approach to citizen-science impact assessment, and the exact reasoning behind the scores is not explainable.

This is why a project’s rule-based scores and AI scores may differ.

Q: Why are scores out of 42?

A: In Douglas Adams' novel 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42. For math fans: a guide to the number 42.

Q: Some domains have more questions than others – is the weighting of the score aligned with the number of questions?

A: All domains are scored out of 42 regardless of the number of questions. The overall score of the project - also out of 42 - is an average of the five domains.

Q: If my project does not focus on economy and gets a low score in economy, does it matter?

A: All projects are assessed across the domains in the same way, regardless of whether they are a project focus or not. If your project is not interested in a domain and gets a low score, it may not matter to you. However, it may be an opportunity to action the recommendations provided in the impact assessment.

Q: If the recommendations are based on ten indicators, and approximately 40 questions, do I need to answer the other 180 questions in order to improve my impact?

A: In terms of improvements based solely on the recommendations, no; you could just answer these 40 questions. However, in terms of learning more about impact generally, and in order to obtain a more accurate impact score out of 42, we encourage you to answer the rest of the questions in the platform.

Creating a project

Q: When creating a project, why it is not possible to add topics that are not listed? Having the possibility of adding new ones might help to define some projects better.

A: Tell us which topics you would like to add, and we'll think about it.

Platform design queries

Q: On the project page, the layout of the description under the banner might be better aligned; currently, it seems to be on some kind of left-hand-side column. Could it be centred or aligned to the length of the banner itself?

A: It could, yes. Let us think about it.

Q: When creating a project, the indications on the size of the images to be uploaded are unclear. Do you have examples of good logo and banner images to use?

A: The logo image should be more or less square, and you can find an example here. The banner image should be more or less horizontal, and you can find an example here. There is also a limit on the weight of the images. So don't try to upload a 9 MB file.

Q: When creating a project, the calendar navigation is not too intuitive. Can you add arrows to navigate through the years? It might help.

A: Hmm... Yes, we can try.