Neal Ungerleider at Co-Labs: “It’s not just for the private sector anymore: Government scientists are embracing crowdsourcing. At a White House-sponsored workshop in late November, representatives from more than 20 different federal agencies gathered to figure out how to integrate crowdsourcing and citizen scientists into various government efforts. The workshop is part of a bigger effort with a lofty goal: Building a set of best practices for the thousands of citizens who are helping federal agencies gather data, from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to NASA….Perhaps the best known federal government crowdsourcing project is Nature’s Notebook, a collaboration between the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service which asks ordinary citizens to take notes on plant and animal species during different times of year. These notes are then cleansed and collated into a massive database on animal and plant phenology that’s used for decision-making by national and local governments. The bulk of the observations, recorded through smartphone apps, are made by ordinary people who spend a lot of time outdoors….Dozens of government agencies are now asking the public for help. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention runs a student-oriented, Mechanical Turk-style “micro-volunteering” service called CDCology, the VA crowdsources design of apps for homeless veterans, while the National Weather Service distributes a mobile app called mPING that asks ordinary citizens to help fine-tune public weather reports by giving information on local conditions. The Federal Communication Commission’s Measuring Broadband America app, meanwhile, allows citizens to volunteer information on their Internet broadband speeds, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Sensor Toolbox asks users to track local air pollution….
As of now, however, when it comes to crowdsourcing data for government scientific research, there’s no unified set of standards or best practices. This can lead to wild variations in how various agencies collect data and use it. For officials hoping to implement citizen science projects within government, the roadblocks to crowdsourcing include factors that crowdsourcing is intended to avoid: limited budgets, heavy bureaucracy, and superiors who are skeptical about the value of relying on the crowd for data.
Benforado and Shanley also pointed out that government agencies are subject to additional regulations, such as the Paperwork Reduction Act, which can make implementation of crowdsourcing projects more challenging than they would be in academia or the private sector… (More)”
Gamifying Cancer Research Crowdsources the Race for the Cure
Jason Brick at PSFK: “Computer time and human hours are among of the biggest obstacles in the face of progress in the fight against cancer. Researchers have terabytes of data, but only so many processors and people with which to analyze it. Much like the SETI program (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), it’s likely that big answers are already in the information we’ve collected. They’re just waiting for somebody to find them.
Reverse the Odds, a free mobile game from Cancer Research UK, accesses the combined resources of geeks and gamers worldwide. It’s a simple app game, the kind you play in line at the bank or while waiting at the dentist’s office, in which you complete mini puzzles and buy upgrades to save an imaginary world.
Each puzzle of the game is a repurposing of cancer data. Players find patterns in the data — the exact kind of analysis grad students and volunteers in a lab look for — and the results get compiled by Cancer Research UK for use in finding a cure. Errors are expected and accounted for because the thousands of players expected will round out the occasional mistake….(More)”
Nominet Trust – celebrating 100 life-changing applications of digital technology
Charles Leadbeater in the Financial Times: “The Nominet Trust, the corporate foundation of Nominet, the organisation which looks after the UK’s system of website addresses, has been scouring the world for innovations in which people use digital technologies to tackle social challenges. The Trust wants to inspire and back UK innovators to realise the still largely untapped social potential of digital technologies, to provide new ways for people to learn, look after their health, find cleaner forms of energy and create new economic activity.
We have just announced the second year of the Nominet Trust 100, our annual celebration of such global digital social innovation. This showcases the incessant, unfolding waves of innovation rippling around the world as cheaper and more reliable digital technologies cross-fertilise and multiply. Such innovation waves build from far off before rushing forward with immense power. One prime example is 3D printing, which is about to become a practical tool rather than an esoteric toy of the rich or hip….
Citizen science
Last year’s NT100 featured Cell Slider, an app from Cancer Research UK that harnessed the power of “citizen scientists” to classify images of cells, helping researchers move more quickly towards finding a cure for cancer. Cellslider’s citizen-science approach meant that in just three months, one million images were classified by people using the app. Reverse the Odds reached that milestone in just two weeks.
Combining state-of-the-art game design, expertise in data analysis and remarkable production values, Reverse the Odds is a mobile puzzle where players are challenged to save a race of adorable minions within a magical world. The mini-puzzles are enough to engage thousands of players but in helping these colourful creatures, players are actually analysing real cancer data, which helps the scientists at Cancer Research UK to move more quickly to finding cures. The charity has terabytes of images of cells that can only be analysed by humans — computers can’t identify the patterns required.
Fighting harassment
HarassMap is an Egyptian innovation to crowd-map sexual harassment, in a country where 83 per cent of women, and 98 per cent of foreign women, have experienced sexual abuse and assault.
The NGO, founded by Rebecca Chiao and three other women in 2010, uses the same technology as Ushahidi did in mapping violence in Kenya’s 2007 elections. Anyone can report and detail each instance of an attack, filed by category, from ogling and catcalling, to indecent exposure and rape, using their mobile phone to upload information to a database which then generates the map.
Victims get an instant, automated message of support including where to get legal aid, psychological counselling, learn self-defence and how to make a police report. The data generated allows the NGO to properly measure the problem of sexual harassment for the first time and help engineer a shift in how the Egyptian media reports sexual attacks. It also gives their network of 1,500 trained volunteers the ammunition to make sexual abuse socially unacceptable by challenging community norms, using hard facts.
HarassMap has a distressingly large potential market. The group has given training and technical assistance to activists from 28 other countries to run similar projects, everywhere from Palestine and Yemen to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Syria, India and the UK….”
Let’s kickstart science in America
David Lang at Ideas.Ted: “Science funding is broken. To fix it, we need to empower a new class of makers, citizen scientists and explorers
The troubling state of science funding in America goes by many names: sequestration, the profzi scheme, the postdocalypse. Because it can take extensive planning over years in academia to gain research funds from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, “nobody takes risks anymore,” writes one researcher in his “Goodbye Academia” letter. “Nobody young jumps and tries totally new things, because it’s almost surely a noble way to suicide your career.” The result? We are on the verge of losing a generation of scientists at the exact moment we need to embolden them. Biologist Michael Eisen sums up the effects of the funding crunch: “It is an amazing time to do science, but an incredibly difficult time to be a scientist.”
It’s not all bad news for the thousands of science and conservation ideas that fall outside the traditional funding rubric. Fortunately, new citizen science models are emerging — along with a new class of philanthropic backers to fill the funding voids left by the NSF and the NIH. Our experience developing OpenROV (an open-source underwater robot) into one of the largest (by volume) underwater robot manufacturers in the world is illustrative of this shift.
Looking back at the sequence of events, it seems improbable that such a small amount of initial funding could have made such a large impact, but it makes perfect sense when you break down all the contributing factors. Two years ago, we weren’t even part of the oceanographic community. Our ideas and techniques were outside the playbook for experienced ocean engineers. And since we only had enough money to test the first thing, not the whole thing, we started by creating a prototype. Using TechShop equipment in San Francisco, we able to create several iterations of a low-cost underwater robot that was suitable for our purpose: exploring an underwater cave and looking for lost treasure. After sharing our designs online, we found a community of like-minded developers. Together we raised over $100,000 on Kickstarter to do a first run of manufacturing.
This experience made us think: How can we make more microsponsorship opportunities available in science, exploration and conservation? OpenExplorer was our response. Instead of providing seed funding, we’ve created a model that gives everyone a chance to sponsor new ideas, research and expeditions in science and engineering. One success: TED Fellow Asha de Vos‘s work on preventing the ship strike of blue whales in the Indian Ocean….”
Designing a Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing Toolkit for the Federal Government
In the 2013 Second Open Government National Action Plan, President Obama called on Federal agencies to harness the ingenuity of the public by accelerating and scaling the use of open innovation methods, such as citizen science and crowdsourcing, to help address a wide range of scientific and societal problems.
Citizen science is a form of open collaboration in which members of the public participate in the scientific process, including identifying research questions, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting results, and solving problems. Crowdsourcing is a process in which individuals or organizations submit an open call for voluntary contributions from a large group of unknown individuals (“the crowd”) or, in some cases, a bounded group of trusted individuals or experts.
Citizen science and crowdsourcing are powerful tools that can help Federal agencies:
- Advance and accelerate scientific research through group discovery and co-creation of knowledge. For instance, engaging the public in data collection can provide information at resolutions that would be difficult for Federal agencies to obtain due to time, geographic, or resource constraints.
- Increase science literacy and provide students with skills needed to excel in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Volunteers in citizen science or crowdsourcing projects gain hands-on experience doing real science, and take that learning outside of the classroom setting.
- Improve delivery of government services with significantly lower resource investments.
- Connect citizens to the missions of Federal agencies by promoting a spirit of open government and volunteerism.
To enable effective and appropriate use of these new approaches, the Open Government National Action Plan specifically commits the Federal government to “convene an interagency group to develop an Open Innovation Toolkit for Federal agencies that will include best practices, training, policies, and guidance on authorities related to open innovation, including approaches such as incentive prizes, crowdsourcing, and citizen science.”
On November 21, 2014, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) kicked off development of the Toolkit with a human-centered design workshop. Human-centered design is a multi-stage process that requires product designers to engage with different stakeholders in creating, iteratively testing, and refining their product designs. The workshop was planned and executed in partnership with the Office of Personnel Management’s human-centered design practice known as “The Lab” and the Federal Community of Practice on Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science (FCPCCS), a growing network of more than 100 employees from more than 20 Federal agencies….
The Toolkit will help further the culture of innovation, learning, sharing, and doing in the Federal citizen science and crowdsourcing community: indeed, the development of the Toolkit is a collaborative and community-building activity in and of itself.
The following successful Federal projects illustrate the variety of possible citizen science and crowdsourcing applications:
- The Citizen Archivist Dashboard (NARA) coordinates crowdsourced archival record tagging and document transcription. Recently, more than 170,000 volunteers indexed 132 million names of the 1940 Census in only five months, which NARA could not have done alone.
- Through Measuring Broadband America (FCC), 2 million volunteers collected and provided the FCC with data on their Internet speeds, data that FCC used to create a National Broadband Map revealing digital divides.
- In 2014, Nature’s Notebook (USGS, NSF) volunteers recorded more than 1 million observations on plants and animals that scientists use to analyze environmental change.
- Did You Feel It? (USGS) has enabled more than 3 million people worldwide to share their experiences during and immediately after earthquakes. This information facilitates rapid damage assessments and scientific research, particularly in areas without dense sensor networks.
- The mPING (NOAA) mobile app has collected more than 600,000 ground-based observations that help verify weather models.
- USAID anonymized and opened its loan guarantee data to volunteer mappers. Volunteers mapped 10,000 data points in only 16 hours, compared to the 60 hours officials expected.
- The Air Sensor Toolbox (EPA), together with training workshops, scientific partners, technology evaluations, and a scientific instrumentation loan program, empowers communities to monitor and report local air pollution.
In early 2015, OSTP, in partnership with the Challenges and Prizes Community of Practice, will convene Federal practitioners to develop the other half of the Open Innovation Toolkit for prizes and challenges. Stay tuned!”
NASA Launches New Citizen Science Website
Robert McNamara at Commons Lab:NASASolve debuted last month as a one-stop-shop for prizes and challenges that are seeking contributions from people like you. Don’t worry you need not be a rocket scientist to apply. The general public is encouraged to contribute to solving a variety of challenges facing NASA in reaching its mission goals. From hunting asteroids to re-designing Balance Mass for the Mars Lander, there are multitudes of ways for you to be a part of the nation’s space program.
Crowdsourcing the public for innovative solutions is something that NASA has been engaged in since 2005. But as NASA’s chief technologist points out, “NASASolve is a great way for members of the public and other citizen scientists to see all NASA prizes and challenges in one location.” The new site hopes to build on past successes like the Astronaut Glove Challenge, the ISS Longeron Challenge and the Zero Robotics Video Challenge. “Challenges are one tool to tap the top talent and best ideas. Partnering with the community to get ideas and solutions is important for NASA moving forward,” says Jennifer Gustetic, Program Executive of NASA Prizes and Challenges.
In order to encourage more active public participation, millions of dollars and scholarships have been set aside to reward those whose ideas and solutions succeed in taking on NASA’s challenges. If you want to get involved, visit NASASolve for more information and the current list of challenges waiting for solutions….
Open Access Button
About the Open Access Button: “The key functions of the Open Access Button are finding free research, making more research available and also advocacy. Here’s how each works.
Finding free papers
Research published in journals that require you to pay to read can sometimes be accessed free in other places. These other copies are often very similar to the published version, but may lack nice formatting or be a version prior to peer review. These copies can be found in research repositories, on authors websites and many other places because they’re archived. To find these versions we identify the paper a user needs and effectively search on Google Scholar and CORE to find these copies and link them to the users.
Making more research, or information about papers available
If a free copy isn’t available we aim to make one. This is not a simple task and so we have to use a few different innovative strategies. First, we email the author of the research and ask them to make a copy of the research available – once they do this we’ll send it to everyone who needs it. Second, we create pages for each paper needed which, if shared, viewed, and linked to an author could see and provide their paper on. Third, we’re building ways to find associated information about a paper such as the facts contained, comments from people who’ve read it, related information and lay summaries.
Advocacy
Unfortunately the Open Access Button can only do so much, and isn’t a perfect or long term solution to this problem. The data and stories collected by the Button are used to help make the changes required to really solve this issue. We also support campaigns and grassroots advocates with this at openaccessbutton.org/action..”
Google trial lets you chat with doctors when you search for symptoms
at Engadget: “Searching the web for symptoms of illness can be dangerous — you could identify a real condition, but you also risk scaring yourself for no reason through a misdiagnosis. Google might have a solution that puts your mind at ease, though. The company has confirmed to Engadget that it’s testing a Helpouts-style feature which offers video chats with doctors when you search for symptoms. While there aren’t many details of how this works in practice, the search card mentions that Google is covering the costs of any chats during the trial phase. You’ll likely have to pay for virtual appointments if and when the service is ever ready for prime time, then. That’s not ideal, but it could be much cheaper than seeing a physician in person….”
Journey tracking app will use cyclist data to make cities safer for bikes
Springwise: “Most cities were never designed to cater for the huge numbers of bikes seen on their roads every day, and as the number of cyclists grows, so do the fatality statistics thanks to limited investment in safe cycle paths. While Berlin already crowdsources bikers’ favorite cycle routes and maps them through the Dynamic Connections platform, a new app called WeCycle lets cyclists track their journeys, pooling their data to create heat maps for city planners.
Created by the UK’s TravelAI transport startup, WeCycle taps into the current consumer trend for quantifying every aspect of life, including journey times. By downloading the free iOS app, London cyclists can seamlessly create stats each time they get on their bike. They app runs in the background and uses the device’s accelerometer to smartly distinguish walking or running from cycling. They can then see how far they’ve traveled, how fast they cycle and every route they’ve taken. Additionally, the app also tracks bus and car travel.
Anyone that downloads the app agrees that their data can be anonymously sent to TravelAI, creating an accurate and real-time information resource. It aims to create tools such as heat maps and behavior monitoring for cities and local authorities to learn more about how citizens are using roads to better inform their transport policies.
WeCycle follows in the footsteps of similar apps such as Germany’s Radwende and the Toronto Cycling App — both released this year — in taking a popular trend and turning into data that could help make cities a safer place to cycle….Website: www.travelai.info“
Citizen Science: The Law and Ethics of Public Access to Medical Big Data
New Paper by Sharona Hoffman: “Patient-related medical information is becoming increasingly available on the Internet, spurred by government open data policies and private sector data sharing initiatives. Websites such as HealthData.gov, GenBank, and PatientsLikeMe allow members of the public to access a wealth of health information. As the medical information terrain quickly changes, the legal system must not lag behind. This Article provides a base on which to build a coherent data policy. It canvasses emergent data troves and wrestles with their legal and ethical ramifications.
Publicly accessible medical data have the potential to yield numerous benefits, including scientific discoveries, cost savings, the development of patient support tools, healthcare quality improvement, greater government transparency, public education, and positive changes in healthcare policy. At the same time, the availability of electronic personal health information that can be mined by any Internet user raises concerns related to privacy, discrimination, erroneous research findings, and litigation. This Article analyzes the benefits and risks of health data sharing and proposes balanced legislative, regulatory, and policy modifications to guide data disclosure and use.”