Guest lecture for COMM/INFO course on online communities at Cornell University.

1. Online Communities in
s!
Citizen Science C am
rd
i
B
&
Andrea Wiggins
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of New Mexico & Cornell University
19 November, 2013

2. What is citizen science?
Members of the public engaging in real-world
scientific research
Crowdsourcing
Collaboration
Community

3. What is citizen science?
intelligent
mobile sensor
net work
crowdsourcing science
human
computation
?
Public Participation
in Scientific Research

4. Participation in scientific tasks
PPSR$models:
Contributory*
Collabora1ve* CoACreated*
Define*a*ques1on/issue*
Gather*informa1on*
Develop*explana1ons*
Design*data*collec1on*methods*
Collect*samples*
Analyze*samples*
Analyze*data*
Interpret*data/conclude*
Disseminate*conclusions*
Discuss*results/inquire*further*
CAISE Report, 2009

5. Goals and the role of place
Type
Primary Goals
Physicality
Action
Action &
Intervention
Conservation &
Stewardship
✓
Investigation
Science
✓
Virtual
Science
Education
Education &
Outreach
Conservation
✓
✓
Wiggins & Crowston, 2011

6. Contribution types
Data collection (“sensing”)
• Most common
• Observations & measurements
Data processing
• On the rise
• Entirely online
• Image recognition & puzzle solving
Data transcription
• On the rise
• Mostly online

7. Participant experience
Sharing my data/experiences
• Fits into daily life
• People like to share their passions
Working on their/our tasks
• Novel tasks
• Can reinforce hierarchy
Playing games & solving puzzles
• Fits into daily life
• Explicit symbolic rewards, entertaining

8. What does it accomplish?
engage%cri)cal%thinking%
(Trumbull%et%al%2000)%
science%learning,%bonding%
(Kountoupes%and%Oberhauser%2008)%
environmental%ac)on;%social%networks%
(Overdevest%et%al.%2004)%
social%capital%
(Ballard%2008)%
improved%policy%
(Wing%et%al.%2008)%

9. What does it accomplish?
documen(ng*range*shi0s*
(Bonter*et*al.*unpublished*data)*
iden(fying*poten(al*mismatches*
(Batalden*et*al.*2007)*
iden(fying*vulnerable*species*
(Crimmins*et*al*2008,*2009)*
health*planning*
(Leve(n*and*Van*de*Water*2008)*
an(cipa(ng*effects*on*water*sources*
(e.g.,*CoCoRaHS)*
processing
large
image
data
sets
(e.g.,
Zooniverse
projects)
applying
human
computa:on
skills
(e.g.,
Foldit)

10. Galaxy Zoo
Classifying images of galaxies
Participation involves:
Looking at pictures of galaxies online
Answering a few questions about them
Started in 2007 by a team of academic astronomers
Instant success and exciting new discoveries
Galaxy Zoo 1, Year 1: 50M classifications, 150K volunteers
Galaxy Zoo 2, Year 2: 60M classifications in 14 months
Hanny’s Voorwerp
Green Pea galaxies

11. eBird
Collecting bird abundance and distribution data
Participation involves:
Choosing observation methods
Recording bird observations (analog or digital)
Entering observations and metadata online
Launched in 2002 by Cornell Lab of Ornithology
(with National Audubon Society)
World’s largest biodiversity data set: 150M records
Currently receives about 3M observations/month
Data used in research and decision-making for land
management, policy (and recreation)

12. ICTs for Citizen Science
Web-based data entry & social tools
“Vanilla” website
CMS
Custom platform
Mobile
Games
CitizenSort
image courtesy
of Eric Graham

13. Images courtesy of Nathan Prestopnik and the
CitizenSort team at Syracuse University
US NSF Grant # 09-68470

14. Online Communities
We don’t know
much!
Potential value
Important in entirely
online projects
Recruitment tool
But what about...
Place-dependent
projects?
Pre-existing
communities?
Scale of participation?
Retention tool
Capture serendipity
Promote inquiry
Gather evaluation data
More...

15. Online & Offline Communities
Online interactions
Blogs + forums + social media
Leaderboards, visibility of others’ data, “shared
checklists”
Core activities often offline
Observing birds -> go outside!
Non-integrated social activities & technologies

16. Communities in Citizen Science
In-person recruitment most effective
Not feasible for entirely virtual projects
Important for retention
Come for the coffee, stay for the conversation
Main community engagement strategies
Traditional: tapping into existing communities
Virtual: creating a new community

17. Challenges
Strategic implementation required with
existing communities
$$$
Active management
Technical resources
Zooniverse research underway to learn more
Planet Hunters & Sea Floor Explorers

18. d The Truman Show...
ir
B s!
m
a
C

19. d ...For Bird Watchers!
ir
B s!
m
a
C

20. Bird Cams
Nest cams: spring through early fall
Inside nest boxes (owls, small birds)
Outdoors on larger nests (heron, hawk)
Feeder cams: late fall through early spring
Equipment
Consumer devices for under $100

21. cams.allaboutbirds.org

22. Nest Cams
“The first video nest cam was created in
1998 by the Midwest Raptor Resource
Center to monitor a Peregrine Falcon nest in
Iowa”
http://www.goldengateaudubon.org/blog-posts/nest-cams-a-wholly-new-view-of-birds/
Over a million people viewed CLO’s Heron and
Hawk cams in their inaugural year (2012)

24. Care & Feeding
BirdCams Project Leader plus seasonal staff
Volunteer moderators
Unpredictable activity
Multiple social media under various control

25. Emergent Community
Different from most bird cams: live chat
Most people never chat, but many read it
Different reasons to chat (or not)

26. Unexpected Outcomes
Everyone learns from the birds
Self-organizing cliques
Emotional
Addictive
Empowering

27. $ustainability
Donation button
Chat groups ran
fundraising
campaigns
Merchandising

28. Thanks!
andrea.wiggins@cornell.edu
@AndreaWiggins
dataone.org
citizenscience.org
andreawiggins.com