New Desktop Application Has Potential to Increase Asteroid Detection, Now Available to Public

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

NASA Press Release: “A software application based on an algorithm created by a NASA challenge has the potential to increase the number of new asteroid discoveries by amateur astronomers.

Analysis of images taken of our solar system’s main belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter using the algorithm showed a 15 percent increase in positive identification of new asteroids.

During a panel Sunday at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, NASA representatives discussed how citizen scientists have made a difference in asteroid hunting. They also announced the release of a desktop software application developed by NASA in partnership with Planetary Resources, Inc., of Redmond, Washington. The application is based on an Asteroid Data Hunter-derived algorithm that analyzes images for potential asteroids. It’s a tool that can be used by amateur astronomers and citizen scientists.

The Asteroid Data Hunter challenge was part of NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge. The data hunter contest series, which was conducted in partnership with Planetary Resources under a Space Act Agreement, was announced at the 2014 South by Southwest Festival and concluded in December. The series offered a total of $55,000 in awards for participants to develop significantly improved algorithms to identify asteroids in images captured by ground-based telescopes. The winning solutions of each piece of the contest combined to create an application using the best algorithm that increased the detection sensitivity, minimized the number of false positives, ignored imperfections in the data, and ran effectively on all computer systems.

“The Asteroid Grand Challenge is seeking non-traditional partnerships to bring the citizen science and space enthusiast community into NASA’s work,” said Jason Kessler, program executive for NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge. “The Asteroid Data Hunter challenge has been successful beyond our hopes, creating something that makes a tangible difference to asteroid hunting astronomers and highlights the possibility for more people to play a role in protecting our planet.”…

The new asteroid hunting application can be downloaded at:

http://topcoder.com/asteroids

For information about NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative

The crowd-sourcing web project bringing amateur and professional archaeologists together

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Sarah Jackson at Culture 24: “With only limited funds and time, professional archaeologists consistently struggle to protect and interpret the UK’s vast array of archaeological finds and resources. Yet there are huge pools of amateur groups and volunteers who are not only passionate but also skilled and knowledgeable about archaeology in the UK.
Now a new web platform called MicroPasts has been produced in a collaboration between University College London (UCL) and the British Museum to connect institutions and volunteers so that they can create, fund and work on archaeological projects together.
Work by UCL postdoctoral researchers Chiara Bonacchi and Adi Keinan-Schoonbaert and British Museum post doc researcher Jennifer Wexler established much of the ground work including the design, implementation and the public engagement aspects of the of the new site.
According to one of the project leaders, Professor Andrew Bevan at UCL, MicroPasts emerged from a desire to harness the expertise (and manpower) of volunteers and to “pull together crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding in a way that hadn’t been tried before”.
Although there are many crowd-sourcing portals online, they are either specific to one project (DigVentures, for example, which conducted the world’s first crowd-funded dig in 2012) or can be used to create almost anything you can imagine (such as Kickstarter).
MicroPasts was also inspired by Crowdcrafting, which encourages citizen science projects and, like MicroPasts, offers a platform for volunteers and researchers with an interest in a particular subject to come together to create and contribute to projects….(More)”

Governance in the Information Era

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

New book edited by Erik W. Johnston:” Policy informatics is addressing governance challenges and their consequences, which span the seeming inability of governments to solve complex problems and the disaffection of people from their governments. Policy informatics seeks approaches that enable our governance systems to address increasingly complex challenges and to meet the rising expectations of people to be full participants in their communities. This book approaches these challenges by applying a combination of the latest American and European approaches in applying complex systems modeling, crowdsourcing, participatory platforms and citizen science to explore complex governance challenges in domains that include education, environment, and health.(More)

Citizen Science: Catch, Click and Submit Contest

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Wilson Commons Lab: “The inaugural Catch, Click and Submit Contest begins on Feb 21st in honor of the National Invasive Species Awareness Week running Feb 22nd through the 28th. The contest, which calls on anglers to photograph and report non-native fish species caught during the derby, will award prizes to various categories such as “Most Unusual Catch” and “Most Species”.  Submissions from the contest will aid researchers in developing a better understanding of the distribution of fish species throughout Florida waterways.
By engaging the existing angler community, the contest hopes to increase public awareness of the potential impacts that arise from non-native fish species. “The Catch, Click and Submit Contest offers anglers the opportunity to assist natural resource managers in finding nonnative species by doing what they enjoy – fishing!” said biologist Kelly Gestring. “The early detection of a new, nonnative species could provide a better opportunity to control or even eradicate a population.” The hope is that participants will choose to target non-native fish for consumption in the future, helping to control invasive populations…(More).”

Training the next generation of public leaders

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Thanks to the generous support of the Knight Foundation, this term the Governance Lab Academy – a training program designed to promote civic engagement and innovation – is launching a series of online coaching programs.
Geared to the teams and individuals inside and outside of government planning to undertake a new project or trying to figure out how to make an existing project even more effective and scalable, these programs are designed to help participants working in civic engagement and innovation develop effective projects from idea to implementation.
Convened by leading experts in their fields, coaching programs meet exclusively online once a week for four weeks or every other week for eight weeks. They include frequent and constructive feedback, customized and original learning materials, peer-to-peer support, mentoring by topic experts and individualized coaching from those with policy, technology, and domain expertise.
There is no charge to participants but each program is limited to 8-10 project teams or individuals.
You can see the current roster of programs below and check out the website for more information (including FAQs), to sign up and to suggest a new program.

Faculty includes: 

  • Brian Behlendorf, Managing Director at Mithril Capital Management and Co-Founder Apache
  • Alexandra Clare, Founder of Iraq Re:Coded
  • Brian Forde, Senior Former Advisor to the U.S. CTO, White House Office of Science Technology and Policy
  • Francois Grey,  Coordinator of the Citizen Cyberscience Centre, Geneva
  • Gavin Hayman, Executive Director of the Open Contracting Partnership
  • Clay Johnson, CEO of The Department for Better Technology and Former Presidential Innovation Fellow
  • Benjamin Kallos, New York City Council Member and Chair of the Committee on Governmental Operations of the New York City Council
  • Karim Lakhani, Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School
  • Amen Ra Mashariki, Chief Analytics Officer of New York City
  • Geoff Mulgan, Chief Executive of NESTA
  • Miriam Nisbet,  Former Director of the Office of Government Information Services
  • Beth Noveck, Founder and CEO of The GovLab
  • Tiago Peixoto, Open Government Specialist at The World Bank
  • Arnaud Sahuguet, Chief Technology Officer of The GovLab
  • Joeri van den Steenhoven, Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer of MaRS Solutions Lab
  • Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer of The GovLab

Surveying the citizen science landscape

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Andrea Wiggins and Kevin Crowston in First Monday: “Citizen science has seen enormous growth in recent years, in part due to the influence of the Internet, and a corresponding growth in interest. However, the few stand-out examples that have received attention from media and researchers are not representative of the diversity of the field as a whole, and therefore may not be the best models for those seeking to study or start a citizen science project. In this work, we present the results of a survey of citizen science project leaders, identifying sub-groups of project types according to a variety of features related to project design and management, including funding sources, goals, participant activities, data quality processes, and social interaction. These combined features highlight the diversity of citizen science, providing an overview of the breadth of the phenomenon and laying a foundation for comparison between citizen science projects and to other online communities….(More).”

Citizen Science in America’s DNA

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Keynote by NOAA Chief Scientist, Dr. Richard Spinrad at the forum  entitled, Tracking a Changing Climate: “Citizen science is part of America’s DNA.  For centuries, citizens not trained in science have helped shaped our understanding of Earth.
Thomas Jefferson turned Lewis and Clark into citizen scientists when he asked them to explore the landscape, wildlife and weather during their journeys of the West.They investigated plants, animals and geography, and came back with maps, sketches and journals.  These new data were some of the first pieces of environmental intelligence defining our young nation.  President Jefferson instilled citizen science in my own agency’s DNA by creating the Survey of the Coast, a NOAA legacy agency focused on charting  and protecting the entire coast of our Nation.
The National Weather Service’s Cooperative Observer Program, begun in 1890, is an outstanding example of citizen science.  Last year, NOAA honored an observer who has provided weather observations every day for 80 years. Volunteer citizen scientists have transcribed more than 68,000 pages of Arctic ship logs, adding to the long-term climate record by populating a database with historic weather and sea ice observations. Also, citizen scientists are providing new estimates of cyclone intensity by interpreting satellite images.
There is tremendous value in the capability of citizen scientists to feed local data into their own communities’ forecasts. In September 2013, for example, formal observation systems and tracking instruments were washed out when extreme floods struck Colorado and New Mexico. By ensuring that real-time forecasts were still integrated into the National Weather Service Flood Warning System, the reports of about 200 citizen scientists contributed to what has been called the best mapped extreme rain event in Colorado history and possibly nationwide.
The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow (CoCoRaHS) Network played a pivotal role in this mapping. CoCoRaHS also shows how citizen science can help make data collection straightforward and inexpensive. To measure the impact and size of hail, for example, it uses a Styrofoam sheet covered with tin foil, creating a “hail pad” that has proven to be quite accurate.
The recognized value of citizen science is growing rapidly.  NOAA has an app to crowdsource real-time precipitation data. If you feel a raindrop, or spot a snowflake, report it through NOAA’s mPING app. Precipitation reports have already topped 600,000, and the National Weather Service uses them to fine-tune forecasts…(More).”

New Journal: Citizen Science: Theory and Practice

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“Citizen Science: Theory and Practice is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal published by Ubiquity Press on behalf of the Citizen Science Association. It focuses on advancing the field of citizen science by providing a venue for citizen science researchers and practitioners – scientists, information technologists, conservation biologists, community health organizers, educators, evaluators, urban planners, and more – to share best practices in conceiving, developing, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining projects that facilitate public participation in scientific endeavors in any discipline.”

Coop’s Citizen Sci Scoop: Try it, you might like it

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Response by Caren Cooper at PLOS: “Margaret Mead, the world-famous anthropologist said, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
The sentiment rings true for citizen science.
Yet, recent news in the citizen science world has been headlined “Most participants in citizen science projects give up almost immediately.” This was based on a study of participation in seven different projects within the crowdsourcing hub called Zooniverse. Most participants tried a project once, very briefly, and never returned.
What’s unusual about Zooniverse projects is not the high turnover of quitters. Rather, it’s unusual that even early quitters do some important work. That’s a cleverly designed project. An ethical principle of Zooniverse is to not waste people’s time. The crowdsourcing tasks are pivotal to advancing research. They cannot be accomplished by computer algorithms or machines. They require crowds of people, each chipping in a tiny bit. What is remarkable is that the quitters matter at all….
An Internet rule of thumb in that only 1% (or less) of users add new content to sites like Wikipedia. Citizen science appears to operate on this dynamic, except instead of a core group adding existing knowledge for the crowd to use, a core group is involved in making new knowledge for the crowd to use….
In citizen science, a crowd can be four or a crowd can be hundreds of thousands. A citizen scientist is not a person who will participate in any project. They are individuals – gamers, birders, stargazers, gardeners, weather bugs, hikers, naturalists, and more – with particular interests and motivations.
As my grandfather said, “Try it, you might like it.” It’s fabulous that millions are trying it. Sooner or later, when participants and projects find one another, a good match translates into a job well done….(More)”.

Motivations for sustained participation in crowdsourcing: The role of talk in a citizen science case study

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by CB. Jackson, C. Østerlund, G. Mugar, KDV. Hassman for the Proceedings of the Forty-eighth Hawai’i International Conference on System Science (HICSS-48): “The paper explores the motivations of volunteers in a large crowdsourcing project and contributes to our understanding of the motivational factors that lead to deeper engagement beyond initial participation. Drawing on the theory of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) and the literature on motivation in crowdsourcing, we analyze interview and trace data from a large citizen science project. The analyses identify ways in which the technical features of the projects may serve as motivational factors leading participants towards sustained participation. The results suggest volunteers first engage in activities to support knowledge acquisition and later share knowledge with other volunteers and finally increase participation in Talk through a punctuated process of role discovery…(More)”

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