In this article, our objectives were to (1) develop a citizen science website; (2) determine
general perceptions; (3) discover potential problems; (4) improve the website; (5) discuss
citizen science websites in relation to online PPGIS; (6) examine the role(s) websites may
play in the citizen science research model; (7) discuss how citizen science research advances
GIScience; and (8) offer guidelines to improve citizen-based web mapping applications.
Although our web usability evaluation helped us with objectives (2), (3), and (4), continued
development of the citizen science website and additional interactions with citizen science
volunteers and volunteer coordinators since helped us gain insights related to objectives (5),
(6), and (7). We discuss our results related to these latter objectives based on our experiences
and conclude with guidelines for citizen-based web mapping applications (objective 8).