A fuzzy system for quality assurance of crowdsourced wildlife observation geodata

Abstract

A conceptual model for quality assurance of species occurrence observations in citizen science projects is described below. We adopted the notion of trust as an indicator of VGI quality and define the concept of trustworthiness of a VGI record as a function of three main contexts: consistency with habitat, consistency with neighbors, and the reputation of the volunteer. Using fuzzy control system the quality of an observation is quantified in terms of the level of the trustworthiness of the volunteered species observation. The architecture of the proposed system is briefly described and some results presented. Finally, our paper ends with concluding remarks and some thoughts for future research directions.