In my last blog post, I introduced Matthew Maury, an American naval officer who began a citizen science project in the mid-1800s that transformed seafaring and drew society closer to science. Now let’s meet his British counterpart, William Whewell, an elite scholar who engaged the public to understand the tides, but in so doing helped…
Abstract: A growing amount of scientific research is done in an open collaborative fashion, in projects sometimes referred to as “crowd science”, “citizen science”, or “networked science”. This paper seeks to gain a more systematic understanding of crowd science and to provide scholars with a conceptual framework and an agenda for future research. First, we…
After the blockbuster movie Jaws, two silly things happened: kids started calling me Hooper (instead of Cooper) and I was afraid even in the deep end of a swimming pool. Logic can battle fear, but not necessarily win. Even though there are hundreds of species of sharks, and about 20 types that ever harm…
We know that grassland habitats are important for the birds we love to watch throughout the summer. Bluebirds and swallows in particular prefer the view from their nest box or tree cavity to be an open, grassy expanse complete with wildflowers and insects. And in order to maintain this picturesque “early-successional” habitat for our avian…
White lipped tree frog (by Felanox/Wikipedia,/CC BY-SA 3.0) This is an except of a story that ran in the February 2015 issue of Association of Zoos and Aquariums monthly magazine, Connect. Looking for amphibious citizen science projects? Look no further! SciStarter has some lined up for you right here. By Cathie Gandel At dusk, Carolyn Rinaldi…
A group of conservation, animal welfare, and media groups filed suit challenging the state of Wyoming for its data trespassing laws passed in the 2015 session. Plaintiffs Western Watersheds Project, National Press Photographers Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Center for Food Safety filed the lawsuit…
This paper, by Ramine Tinati of the University of Southampton et al, studies Eyewire‘s use of real-time chat, looking at the contributions of both chatting and non-chatting members of the community. It was published in ACM Web Science 2015, and is available as a preprint here. Citizen science is changing the process of scientific knowledge…
This post first ran on the Zooniverse blog and describes work by Cox et al published in Computing in Science & Engineering What makes one citizen science project flourish while another flounders? Is there a foolproof recipe for success when creating a citizen science project? As part of building and helping others build projects that…
Citizen science is a flexible concept which can be adapted and applied within diverse situations and disciplines. The statements below were developed by the Sharing best practice and building capacity working group of the European Citizen Science Association, led by the Natural History Museum London with input from many members of the Association, to set out some…
A desert horned lizard was one of several species of lizards found by researchers during a survey of reptiles in Joshua Tree National Park on April 1. Scientists with UC Riverside and the national park have been working with volunteers to survey plants and animals in a project that aims to track the effects of…