Crowdsourcing (geo-) information and participatory GIS are among the current hot topics in research and industry. Various projects are implementing participatory sensing concepts within their workflow in order to benefit from the power of volunteers, and improve their product quality and efficiency. Wheelmap is a crowdsourcing platform where volunteers contribute information about wheelchair-ac...

Strategic decision makers are frequently faced with unstructured problems that cannot be solved adequately by analytical means. In such situations, a better decision-making approach is one based on stakeholders’ participation. A particular form of such an approach is known as participatory modelling, whereby participatory methods are used for knowledge elicitation while simulation modelling tec...

This paper reviews recent innovations in the use of participatory tools and methods that are relevant to urban areas. This includes the use of participatory approaches for understanding poverty, involving children, identifying livelihood opportunities, and monitoring and evaluating projects. It also highlights recent literature which discusses how participatory and conventional research and pla...

Just as the notion of participatory approaches has been subjected to questioning and criticism, so has the more specific notion of participatory approaches to monitoring and evaluation. There are parallel possibilities of tokenism and even of manipulation, here, just as there are parallels around the need for more critical reflection and dialogue. Even if not actually manipulative, participator...

Comprehensive animal health surveillance programmes require components that ensure the overall sensitivity and timeliness of surveillance data. Participatory epidemiology (PE) is the application of participatory rural appraisal techniques to the collection of epidemiological intelligence. Participatory disease searching (PDS) is the use of PE techniques in active disease surveillance and outbre...

The typical approach taken by clinical studies examining the factors that affect mood is to use questionnaires in order to record the activities that impact the mood. However, recording activities in this manner suffers from a number of issues including floor effect and difficulty in recalling past activities. Our work instead has focused on using unobtrusive monitoring technology to study mood...

In “Confronting the Challenges of a Participatory Culture”, Jenkins and colleagues (2006) outlined three challenges in their participatory competencies framework that need to be addressed to prepare youth for full involvement in a digital culture – participation, transparency, and ethics. Expanding upon the framework of our earlier work, in this paper we examine more closely two aspects of Jenk...

This book is a collection of experiences in participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) from around the world. It allows different ‘voices’ to tell their story from their different perspectives, contexts, and settings. The purpose of the book is not to establish a singular definition of PM&E practice, but to pull together these experiences, review these efforts, and see what key issues and q...