Agenda

What would the goals of a project be?Outreach and educationScienceTechnology development

The ScienceScientific questions?How engage participants in planning the science and doing the science partWhat about authorship and acknowledgement?  How do you reward participants?

Privacy/Ethics/Informed Consent Concerns

What happens to human DNA that is coincidentally sequenced?What about pathogens detected?How to avoid the trap of answering “Are there pathogens/toxic organisms in my house/office/etc?”How to anonymize information from people yet still send them results?Who Owns the Data?What about detecting things like immune disorders, etc, due to anomalies in the microbiome?What about detecting interactions between people?Do we need microbial counselors?

-Standardizing sampling and DIY Kit Building

What is the balance between standardization and ease of use?What’s in a sampling kit?  Can it be built by the user?How can we reduce costs for kits?How do we get people to collect the right metadata?

-Feedback/Visualization etc

- How do you share data, results, etc with partcipants?How to visualize a complex dataset like that produced by metagenomics?What level of scientific detail constitutes useful feedback?

-Outreach

How do we translate citizen science into an increased level of scientific understanding?Who else to engage? Museums? Companies?  Schools? Government?

-Publicizing, press, etc.

What are the pros and cons of a press release?

-Funding

Possible funding sources for citizen microbiology?Grant funding?Funding by participants?Donors?