The nQuire collaborative research tool and its application to AMR
Earlier in March our post-doc Jess attended a free training session on the Open University’s new Citizen Science tool nQuire. Held on the leafy campus in Milton Keynes this full day training was delivered to a small group of researchers of all levels from professorial to undergraduate. nQuire was built in collaboration between the Open University and the BBC. Indeed, BBC Springwatch viewers will be familiar with the tool as last year it hosted the garden watch surveys allowing the British public to record birds, mammals and invertebrates visiting their gardens.
nQuire designers now want the platform to be utilised more broadly allowing researchers to crowd source data, engage the public or specific communities, and disseminate learnings beyond the research community. This training event really emphasised the collaborative and equitable aspects of nQuire. Facilitators stressed the desire for the platform to be used in ways that allow cross-learning and avoided extractive, one-way data collection methods. For Jess this really chimed with the ethos of the CE4AMR network and projects which all seek to engage with communities in an equitable manor, realising and valuing that learning is a two-way street. Here Jess shares some key thoughts regarding the training and nQuire platform in general.
What is nQuire
nQuire is “a platform to explore yourself and your world” it allows anyone to build missions which, pending ethical approval, are made publicly accessible to collect data from across the global community. Missions can be as straight forward as a survey but can also collect audio, visual and light sensor data using the capabilities of smart phones and similar devices. Missions allow participants to contribute to world-leading research but also expand their own knowledge at the end of the mission by being kept up to date with interim reports and final findings. There is also the option to create confidential missions which are only open to invited participants and thus are more suitable for targeted studies looking for a defined population of participants.
The training allowed us to test out missions and also design our own linked to our research aims. nQuire has an easy-to-use interface that is constantly evolving due to feedback. The designing phase is simple especially if you just want to make a survey. However, there is great scope to collect audio and visual data as well as more specific data such as light levels. Smartphone microphones and cameras are all capable of collecting this type of data meaning anyone with a phone can contribute to research through nQuire. Facilitators also devoted a lot of time to discussing the ethics (more later) and data protection issues around nQuire, for example data points cannot be linked to an individual unless that individual has been asked to provide personal details, created an nQuire account and completed a consent form. Our group discussed at which point in the mission the consent form should appear, many suggested that being initial met with a consent form could be demotivating. However, for missions seeking a specific category of respondents an early consent form would minimise the risk of participants wasting their time.
It was great to hear person-centred discussions coming from an audience of researchers, other attendees clearly placed as much value on their research communities as we do at CE4AMR. This followed when discussing who benefits from an nQuire mission, the primary focus of a survey for example is to collect (extract) information from people. However, when working in groups to discuss how each of us would use nQuire there were lengthy discussions about how the platform could benefit front-end users. For example, one fantastic PhD student considered using the platform to gain measurements of tree truck diameters and estimates of leaf cover (using light sensors on smart phones). They were keen to give back to those who collected the data by sharing information about what insects, birds and mammals may inhabit the tree sampled based on the specific sampling data provided. nQuire allows this facility through individually-tailored feedback at the end of missions and, following that, interim and final reports.
nQuire for AMR?
Luckily for me there was another AMR researcher in the workshop and although our work is quite different, we were able to collaborate and design an AMR specific mission together. As I work in LMIC settings there were immediately questions about the suitability of the platform to collect and transfer data on weak and sporadic internet connections. No concrete answers as yet but it is being looked into! There was also the language barrier to consider. Facilitators were reassuring that missions can be both designed and responded to in any language. However, a pilot (draft version) of a mission would need to be created in English to go through the ethical approval and pre-launch assessment. My AMR buddy however is working on a UK-based project and found the platform very valuable to for designing a survey with multiple routes dependant on the previous answer. This would allow very specific questions regarding AMR and associated health-seeking behaviours to be asked and to drill down to participants specific areas of knowledge. However, a key challenge in this situation was how participants would benefit from the survey, as my AMR buddy cannot provide any medically related advice other than signposting to government/NHS websites. Thus, for AMR in general nQuire was looking a little tricky to apply in a collaborative and non-extractive manor. That said, my own research interests broaden out from AMR in human healthcare to take a one health approach. The ability of nQuire to handle uploaded video/images could be very useful. For example, farmers could share visual examples of when they would use antibiotics on livestock allowing veterinary teams to better understand what prompts antimicrobial usage and to summarise scenarios of responsible antimicrobial use by using community-sourced images/examples.
The ethics of nQuire
I’ve mentioned ethics a few times now and I think it really is one of nQuire’s strong points. Any mission has to be approved by the host institutions ethical approval committee with the certificate being passed the Open University before the mission can be assessed by their in-house team. This team may provide slight alterations to the mission and consent statements but will not conduct secondary ethics. Should a member of the public or an organisation without an ethics committee want to design a mission they can do so and seek approval via the Open University ethical approval process. This process definitely chimes with community centred research as it requires all data collection, analysis, and reporting and dissemination stages to be shared and critiqued early on. However, where co-design with your community is desired, it is possible to create a pilot mission. This mission would only be accessible via a link you share with your target community and allows these participants to contribute to final mission design. I think this is a really great way of keeping the research process fair and robust but also allowing community input.
Final thoughts
In summary this training session was a brilliant chance to engage with other researchers who are interested in engaging their participants in project planning, data collection, evaluation or all of the above. Of course, it was particularly interesting to catch up with another AMR researcher but all participants were equally driven by the desire to understand community knowledge on their specific research area. The nQuire platform will undoubtedly change the way researchers and the public interact. However, what is most exciting to me is the opportunity for two-way learning through nQuire which places equal value on the expertise of the participating community.