Abstract: The human auditory system is adept at detecting sound sources of interest from a complex mixture of several other simultaneous sounds. The ability to selectively attend to the speech of one speaker whilst ignoring other speakers and background noise is of vital biological significance—the capacity to make sense of complex ‘auditory scenes’ is significantly…
This isn’t a new book, but it’s an interesting take on an old story not much discussed in the citizen science community. Perhaps historians of twentieth century citizen science are needed alongside their more common nineteenth century colleagues. – CJL – Technological advances come in such small increments that we rarely think about their accumulated…
Abstract: The participation of non-professionally trained people in so-called citizen science (CS) projects is a much discussed topic at the moment. Frequently, however, the contribution of citizens is limited to only a few narrow tasks. Focusing on an initiative dedicated to the study of the human microbiome, this paper describes such a case where citizen…
Abstract: Citizen science has the potential to expand the scope and scale of research in ecology and conservation, but many professional researchers remain skeptical of data produced by nonexperts. We devised an approach for producing accurate, reliable data from untrained, nonexpert volunteers. On the citizen science website www.snapshotserengeti.org, more than 28,000 volunteers classified 1.51 million images…
Given the wide geographic scope of dragonfly migration, citizen-science observations are critical to furthering knowledge of this remarkable behavior. Our understanding of the migration phenomenon in dragonflies has advanced as engagement in Migratory Dragonfly Partnership projects soar across North America. Now 1,000-strong, MDP’s volunteer network has helped reveal several insights into the behavior and seasonal…
Earlier this year, we introduced you to WeCureALZ – a groundbreaking new project that for the first time is set to use the power of citizen science to conduct Alzheimer’s research. Enabled by the support of the BrightFocus Foundation, the team is already preparing for the alpha testing of our first online activity – a game that will…
This thorough study of the effects of participation in citizen science on a group of high school students is amongst the first to look at the changes in attitude. It’s worth a read in its own right, but is sure to be cited in proposals for the foreseeable future. – CJL – Abstract: Citizen science…
Abstract: The first Ocean Sampling Day (OSD) took place on June 21, 2014. In a coordinated effort, an internationally distributed group of scientists collected samples from marine surface waters in order to study microbial diversity on a single day with global granularity. Concurrently, citizen scientists enriched the OSD initiative through the MyOSD project, providing additional…
Abstract: Crowdsourcing can efficiently complete tasks that are difficult to automate, but the quality of crowdsourced data is tricky to evaluate. Algorithms to grade volunteer work often assume that all tasks are similarly difficult, an assumption that is frequently false. We use a cropland identification game with over 2,600 participants and 165,000 unique tasks to…
This article – in the Royal Astronomical Society’s Astronomy and Geophysics journal – is a wonderful crossover between two different Zooniverse projects. Ships logs included in the Old Weather project fed the curiosity of Solar Storm Watch volunteer Jules Wilkinson, who wrote up the aurora logs of the USS Jeannette Abstract: Julia Wilkinson and a…