Remember SETI?
Crowdsourcing data from happy amateur scientists is not new, but develops very
fast right now thanks to tools (smartphones, internet, etc.) and virtual
communitites. SETI@home was a project initiated 1999. To pick up signals from
intelligent extraterrestrial life, people were encouraged to let the SETI@home
software run on their computer as a screen saver. The more people involved, the
bigger the chance to pick up such a signal.
The 1-day international
workshop
Åke Lindström arranged a workshop the 24
of April, to address the current development and challenges with crowdsourcing
data.
In case you missed the excellent Citizen
Science workshop, keep on reading or go to:
I have been mulling over the right way to
write this blog post for a while now. There was so much useful information for
scientists aspiring to crowdsource data, during this workshop.
Therefore, I have been compiling some of
the best tips from a few of the speakers in this post.
Jonathan
Silverman works with iSpot, which is a site and tool
online. 150 organisations work with iSpot and most users are students and
universities. You can upload an image of any plant or animal to iSpot, and get almost instantaneous answer to what species it is. This is crowdsourcing for
anybody. iSpot helps people learn.
The longer you have been observing, the more likely you are to put an ID
yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it. Also there is an iSpot
quiz to help you sharpen your identification skills. Everything is geo-referenced as well, except
for species on IUCN Red List of threatened species (that are geo-referenced in
an area, but not to the precise sighting).
Helen Roy – the
landscape of citizen science, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK
One of the raison-détre for the Ladybird
Survey UK, is to record ladybirds across the British Isles, linking their
distribution to climate change. Helen is an enthusiastic bug scientist, and being very interested in crowdsourcing for science, she eventually wrote “Guide to Citizen Science” – UK Environmental Observation Framework. She and her co-workers report a surprising finding in that book; there is not one type of person that engage in crowdsourcing, but all kinds of people with different interests, goals and ambitions. (What? Are you saying that we are all nerds?)
Best tips:
Clarity of goals for the people joining the crowdsourcing project is essential! Explicit, simple aims for the
participants. No need to argue; the Ladybird Survey UK has been extremely
successful. Important to
identify and understand target participants (for example children) so that we
can shape the crowdsourcing accordingly.
Kjell Bolmgren –
Turning passion into practice, Swedish University of Aricultural Sciences
For 73 years, Gunnar has been writing down
his observations about the weather and the flowering timepoint for 25 different
species of flowers. Not surprisingly, Gunnar is a farmer. Kjell Bolmgren from Swedish
University of Aricultural Sciences, says it is useful to turn to some groups in
society that already has done some crowdsourcing already. Gunnar´s data ended
up in a publication in International Journal of Biometeorology in 2013!
Kjell also points out that it can be
useful to work together with authorities that need the data. He explains; “The
crowdsourcing work is no longer dependent on a few dedicated enthusiasts.”
Having a professional communicator in his
family, Kjell gets a lot of tips for succeeding with crowdsourcing. People need
motivation and a purpose to help scientists gather data (climate change for
example). It needs to be convenient and simple for them. Perhaps they can do
some sourcing at spots that they pass by every day. They need accurate
instructions and some support (perhaps facebook).
Best tips: Let
people follow different protocols to engage on different levels. Let them have
ONE focus.
Åke Lindström –
Swedish Bird Survey
Swedish Bird Survery
(http://www.zoo.ekol.lu.se/birdmonitoring/Eng/index.htm) has been counting
birds all over Sweden for 30 years. “We ask a lot from our surveyors. It is so
important with the sampling design and data collection”, Åke says. Raise the awareness
about the scientific method! How? Popular science writing, lectures, teach at
courses, year reports to surveyors, workshops for surveyors, community, project
webpage.
Åke sees a drawback with “the old scheme”
used in Swedish Bird Survey: people count birds where they live and where it is
nice to watch. Therefore new scheme was established in 1996. There are new
fixed routes that takes about 6 hours to walk. 716 routes exist in Sweden, and
501 routes were counted in 2013.
Best tips: Make
your survey small. There is a remarkable strength of a small survey. An example
of this is how we get a good idea of how people will vote in election polls.
Surveys done for elections are very small, but give an immense information.
This was just a few of the speakers! Take
a look at the Youtube-link to
see more.
PHOTO: Still of Richard Ottvall, surveyor.
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