A practical approach to an integrated citizens' observatory: The CITI-SENSE framework

The prevalence of research projects that include a focus on Citizens' Observatories (CO) is on the rise, and this increase has led to many initiatives, most notably 'Eye on Earth' which aims to provide a platform which will "facilitate the sharing of environmental, societal and economic data and information, provided by the diversity of knowledge communities, to support sustainable development." This statement covers a whole range of CO communities and projects that can be said to share a common goal, but in many other ways are quite diverse and, from an architectural and Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) perspective, may focus on different aspects. This paper will seek to provide a practical approach to creating an integrated Citizens' Observatory based on the work undertaken in the EU FP7 CITI-SENSE project and following the CITI-SENSE Framework (CSF).