A short time ago, I attended a two-day Citizen Cyberscience workshop at the University of Geneva. As much as the USA and the UK are happy having a vibrant community of citizen scientists, such initiatives in many other European countries are still stuttering. A dedicated workshop in one such country was thus even more exciting. I was there not only because of my interest in the topic but also on behalf of my current position within the EU-funded Citizen Cyberlab’s Synthetic Biology section.

The goal of the workshop was both to get everyone updated on the latest developments of tools for actual citizen science doing and “to work in teams to design and implement a first prototype of a citizen cyberscience project”. The first day was dedicated to talks, and the second day – to hands-on activities. As I recently launched the ‘Open & Citizen Science’ workgroup at the Open Knowledge Foundation France, I am pretty much interested into concrete tools I can use to get people involved into actual projects. Thus, there were two talks of special interest for me: the presentations of Epicollect and Crowdcrafting.

Epicollect

Epicollect, created back in 2009, is a smart, open source software tool for data collection. It works both on a smartphone and through a web browser. Chris Powell, one of the lead developers, was guiding us through the interface while explaining how it works. The workflow is straight-forward: after having logged in, one creates a project and designs the forms that best suit the data to be collected. Epicollect allows the gathering of a wide range of data types, e.g. barcodes and GPS coordinates. Once the forms are set-up, one just loads them on her smartphone and the fun can begin. Epicollect also allows diverse types of visualisations such as on maps or as charts. Last but not least, the beauty of the system also lies in the possibility to collect data in remote areas where no mobile network access is available.

My only concern is the nerdiness level required to design a form. Indeed, it is drag-and-drop: far from difficult even if one fears of not being stunningly tech-savvy. But the availability of different types of input fields seems limited at first sight, and the ‘element details’ (the column on the right) can be confusing. Although the relevant documentation is clear and detailed, it remains lengthy and full with details one has to be well-acquainted with before building a form. This may act as a turn-off for many motivated out there. Last but not least, the form design seems to allow only one-column set-up which makes it unclear how (if possible) the data may be stored as a table.

Screenshot of Epicollect’s form design editor.

Of course, the whole framework being a work in development, such concerns are to last for short. None of them has prevented participants to various citizen science projects to use the tool. And the participation is not going to stop: as Chris Powell highlighted it, around 4,000 projects has collected data at some point, and 150 of them are active.

Crowdcrafting

Indeed, everyone uploads so much pieces of data online every day: what if we turned this into research-enabling raw material? Crowdcrafting is an “online assistance in performing tasks that require human cognition, knowledge or intelligence such as image classification, transcription, geocoding and more!” The platform is open source, built upon a framework called PyBOSSA. Crowdcrafting is supported by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Citizen Cybercentre, among others.

Crowdcrafting’s lead developer, Daniel Lombrana-Gonzalez, presented us the platform and a few very interesting case studies: ‘The Face We Make’ where people can associate emoticons to actual photos thus helping out research on empathy issues for autists; labelling and curating tweets from the Philippines Typhoon to identify which ones contain images; and my favourite one, air quality detection. This latter one is actually concerned with lichens found in city parks as lichens are known to be sensitive to air pollution. Thus, presence/absence of lichens indicates little/high air pollution, respectively. The project featured on Crowdcrafting actually promotes the Sunday wanders in parks brightened-up by detecting lichens and measuring their sizes. Of course, instead of walking around with a ruler, you may just use a one-euro coin which has a constant and known size.

Screenshot showing lichens as biomarkers for air quality.

Crowdcrafting has also been connected to Epicollect: the former can easily import data from the latter. An example of such a great feature is – again – the lichens project. Be it with a coin or with a metro ticket, measuring lichens’ size is straight-forward and the collection of data is even easier through the Crowdcrafting-Epicollect connection and your mobile phone.

Towards the end of his talk, Daniel made a live demonstration of the workflow one follows to create a project on Crowdcrafting: it literally takes 5 minutes. Not surprising thus that a total of 2,562 users have contributed (822 of whom are registered).

I have live-tweeted this whole afternoon and collected the tweets into a dedicated Storify. You can thus read more on CERN’s endeavours in citizen science.

This is a guest post by Amy Freitag. She is a science studies scholar interested broadly in how different ways of knowing might contribute to water quality conservation. You can find her other musings at Southern Fried Science  or chat with her on twitter @bgrassbluecrab.

Citizen science seems to be in vogue now – it even goes by different names, like ‘public participation in scientific research’, ‘co-produced knowledge’, ‘collaborative research, and ‘democratized science’. A handful of scholars have tried to classify the different types while many others expound the myriad benefits this new type of science might bring.

However, I always got the feeling that even with concerted efforts to compare across efforts in citizen science, there was still some underlying disconnect between program expectations and what might qualify them as ‘successful’. So I decided to interview program coordinators and compare what they had to say about recommendations for success to those in the published literature. Lo and behold, my suspicion was correct. Now, my work with Max Pfeffer, recently published in PLoS ONE, describes the many aspects of success and provides a new lens to look at the diversity of citizen science programs.
Fundamentally, citizen science taps into a wealth of information and learning potential outside of traditional science. We’ve all heard the terms for these alternative ways of knowing the world – traditional, indigenous, local, citizen, etc. – that fundamentally describe how to learn instead of what is learned. For instance, a hunter will learn the daily rhythms of his prey through tracking, while a scientist might set out hair traps. Both will yield similar information with a different set of context. According to some philosophies, multiple perspectives such as these are required to fully describe the world.

What counts as legitimate information is a question that has bounced around the philosophical literature for a while. They’ve decided that the public tends to accept information as legitimate (and therefore potentially act on it) if they trust the process by which that information was discovered. Science may not be enough. Theorizing knowledge production and nesting citizen science within these broader philosophies are recent phenomena, therefore most programs don’t systematically think about their purpose and successes along these lines – which is where my disconnect comes in. The wide variety of social and scientific benefits are likely nearly impossible to achieve through the course of a single citizen science program.

So, like the citizens of the world that legitimate information by process, I set out to see how well the citizen science data (the product) meets the goals of the program (the process) in order to get a handle on this nebulous concept of ‘success’.

The top recommendations for success at a broad level matched, though in a slightly different order, between the literature and the program coordinator interviews: collaborating with experts, consistent methodologies, presenting data to policymakers. Where the rubber hits the road, however, these generic recommendations weren’t enough to direct program management. The literature also stressed standardized volunteer training, while program managers stressed that this is a no-brainer for consistency from program inception, which is necessary.

Where the generic recommendations fell flat is when program goals differed. It may not be surprising that recommendations need to be tailored to program context and missions, but this is the missing link that I suspected all along. The mission of each program was not merely to create scientific information but also about education, restoration, stewardship, and community-building. In these contexts, the questions of ‘do you consider yourself successful’ and ‘is your data reliable’ do not mean the same thing – and respondents answered differently. While 84% of program coordinators considered their program successful, only 64% stated confidence in their data. In addition, 97% of the literature articles considered their program successful, reflecting the overall positive bias in scientific reporting.

Overall, success in citizen science programs is as wide-ranging and diverse as their missions and community contexts, which are more likely to focus on the scientific process than purely on the results than published recommendations give them credit for. Survey recommendations were more sensitive to aspects of missions outside data production and incorporated more struggling programs that could speak from expertise. These voices should be made explicit when making recommendations, advertising, or fundraising for citizen science groups. The data’s important but the process is more so.

Photo credit: US Army

Having lived for several years in the Inland Northwest, I can say that one of the many natural beauties of the area is the night sky. On a clear night, the number of bright stars is truly phenomenal. Cap the fire, let your eyes adjust and you might even be able to spot shooting stars, faint galaxies, and even a bright planet.

Unfortunately, for the growing number of us who live in urban environments, these opportunities are limited. The George Conservancy, outside my home Houston, TX, has to be situated almost 50 miles away from our glowing metropolis to get a clearer look at our universe. Light pollution is growing problem, and scientists now are trying to understand its effects on more than just our ability to recognize constellations, but our health, biodiversity, and life quality. What’s amazing is that much of the problem comes from poor street lamp design.

Recently, two new mobile applications have come out to harness the power of citizen science to monitor light pollution and help scientists analyze its effects.

Loss of the Night App

The Loss of the Night App for Android devices challenges citizen scientists to identify as many stars as they can. The app couldn’t be easier to use, and you can even learn different constellations along the way. All of your data is sent to a map database of another light pollution citizen science project called the Globe at Night, which has several years worth of data already collected. You can download their app to view a real time map of light pollution (pretty handy for amateur astronomers). This large scale mapping of data helps researchers understand light pollution in a spatial context to analyze trends and to better determine how to control it.

Dark Sky Meter

Apple fans, you aren’t being left out. In fact, the Dark Sky Meter has been specifically designed to utilize the specifications of the iPhone’s camera. Available free in the iTunes Store, (for iPhone 4S and 5 only) the Dark Sky Meter uses your phones camera to actually take a measure of ‘skglow’, and it is as easy as taking a picture with your phone. Similarly, this app contributes to a growing map of the night sky visibility. Additional features of this app include weather reports for predicting clear nights, moon phase, and sunset, so you can get the best readings.

Both of these apps demonstrate how everyday people can contribute to real science to help address real problems all with a click of a button.

Light pollution, ironically, might suffer from an out of sight, out of mind predicament. With rapid, global urbanization, not enough is known of the potential effects of a brighter nightscape. For example, it is unclear how ecosystems that have evolved to certain circadian rhythms will respond to a relatively sharp increase in artificial light. Both The Loss of the Night app and the Dark Sky Meter are simple citizen science tools that practically anyone can use. The apps are free. The cause is good. So start counting stars and snapping pictures of the night sky to take part in citizen science tonight!

Photo: NASA

Photo credit: Sean Bonner, Safecast.org. Safecast Hackathon.

A little over two years ago the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan was crippled by a massive undersea earthquake and subsequent tsunami. As the accident unfolded there were questions about how much radiation was being released and how to determine what levels of radiation are safe. Initially, information was scarce, but one citizen science effort changed that. Safecast, a non-profit that seemed to spontaneously form following the accident, began collecting and publishing radiation readings, developing measurement tools, and analyzing data.

Photo credit: Safecast.org

Safecast is an interesting example of citizen science for a number of reasons. First, Safecast is participant-driven. The group originated as an email thread among friends inquiring after their loved ones. Soon the discussions turned to ways to aggregate and then collect and distribute data. The Safecast network quickly grew and its fascinating history is documented here and in this short documentary. Second, Safecast built tools to measure radiation readings when the tools were not available or adequate. Sean Bonner, Safecast co-founder, connected with contacts at the Tokyo Hackerspace to help with the design and development of devices. One of their devices, the bGeigie, allows measurements to be taken while driving. Or flying. Third, and relatedly, Safecast founders amassed a network of experts, including folks at the Tokyo Hackerspace, to obtain the expert knowledge they needed to ensure their project was successful. Fourth, they’re not content to collect and share data, but also analyze the data. The list of interesting and important work Safecast is doing goes on and includes visualizing of data and advocating and publishing under a CC0 license.

A visit to German and Australian hackerspaces ignited a new movement. See Farr’s account. Photo credit: hackerspaces.org

Safecast illustrates an emerging space for citizen science: hackerspaces. Hackerspaces, in their current form, have taken shape since 2007. Despite their recent development, more than a thousand hackerspaces (and counting) exist around the world. Hackerspaces are, according to the hackerspaces.org wiki, “community-operated physical places, where people can meet and work on their projects.” Many of these spaces provide access to expensive manufacturing tools, such as laser cutters and 3D printers, as well as access to expert knowledge, such as software and hardware development techniques. Others have begun to provide access to scientific equipment and scientific expert knowledge. The San Francisco-based Noisebridge hackerspace, for example, has a project to launch photographic equipment into the stratosphere, with a particular emphasis on the educational value of the project. A success or failure of the project doesn’t change the important engagement with science, they remind us. Ah-ha, education. BioCurious, in the Bay Area, is a hackerspace for biotech. The space is open to anyone from amateurs to entrepreneurs and includes an autoclave, PCR machines, microcentrifuges, vortexes, and common supplies including pipettes, glassware, tubes and more. Similarly Genspace, in New York, is a non-profit hackerspace that is “dedicated to promoting citizen science and access to biotechnology.” Of course, there is also the work of Safecast through the Toyko Hackerspace.

Safecast’s ability to develop a network of expertise, manage collecting and sharing of massive amounts of data, and analyze the data illustrates that what is possible in hackerspaces goes far beyond tinkering. Scientific work is being done. Other spaces and projects, such as the Spacebridge at Noisebridge, show us that some are also engaged in important science education work. These hackerspaces are, among other things, educational spaces.

While biohacking appears to be somewhat more established than other kinds of science hacking, Safecast demonstrates that the possibility for extending scientific work in hackerspaces. Like many citizen science projects, the research these groups are undertaking is only part of what we might learn from them. Organization of individuals and resources, rapid mobilization and response, crowd-sourced funding and technical solutions, and strategies for educational engagement are all embedded within the work going on in hackerspaces around the world. Scientific hacking also throws into question of notions of expert, non-expert, and expertise. Safecast reminds us that the citizen in “citizen science” is something more akin to Sagan’s “citizen of the Cosmos” than a citizen of a nation.

If you are interested in the work going on in hackerspaces, check out the Hackerspaces.org Wiki and see what is going on in your community. There is a list of hackerspaces around the world on the wiki. If you are interested in supporting the efforts of Safecast, check out their page, and donate to them through their global giving project page.

“Never judge an ant at first glance,” warns Dr. Eleanor Spicer Rice, myrmecologist and head of the School of Ants project.

Meet Forelius pruinosus. At first glance, it may seem a little unimpressive, even underwhelming. However, the more you learn about Forelius, the more you realize there’s more to it than meets the antennae. For one, they’re masters of climate and can survive just as well in the arid desert as it can in your kitchen or bathroom. Surprisingly, they also smell good. These ants secrete an odorous alarm pheromone that attracts their nestmates, a trait that comes in handy when they’re in danger. Forelius are known to be light on their feet as well. When faced with conflict or danger, they shake their bodies and communicate with others by dancing.

Believe it or not, Forelius has yet to acquire a common name, as common as it is in the household and beyond. That’s why Your Wild Life is holding a competition to name it! They’ve taken submissions from all over (museums, science events, online) and received a plethora of creative suggestions–from “Fancy Ant” to “Lady Gaga” and everything in between!

Here are the top four contenders for Forelius‘ common name. Visit the special voting page to pick your favorite! Hurry, the deadline is April 30, 2013!

1. Barricade Ant – Forelius pruinosus use chemical defenses and elaborate teamwork to barricade the colony openings of ants four times larger than themselves during foraging.

2. Blockade Ant – F. pruinosus does not allow other ants to leave their nests if they’ve found something delicious nearby; they surround their competitors’ nest and shoot chemicals out of their butts!

3. High-Noon Ant – F. pruinosus have been described as thermophilic, or heat-loving, and are typically the only ants actively foraging at noon when the sun is at its highest. This is one of the best ways for ant scientists to collect them – go out at the hottest part of the day and you’ll even be likely to find a F. pruinosus!

4. Highway Ant – F. pruinosus forms thick trails as they forage during the day, they form wide ant highways as they travel from a food source back to their nest.

You can view a compilation of all the creative suggestions on the text map below. Click for the interactive version!

You might wonder, why bother with picking a common name at all? “Who would want to talk about Forelius when they could talk about ants that had way more interesting common names like carpenter ants, thief ants or big-headed ants?” emphasizes Holly Menninger, who manages the naming competition for Your Wild Life. What she means is that when something has a common name, it becomes more accessible to people. Sometimes science can be a bit esoteric, even intimidating. However, Your Wild Life has made finding a name for Forelius a democratic process, open to any and all who want to participate: “I think people like to be heard, to have their opinions and ideas make a difference – I think that’s why lots of folks are attracted to voting contests.”

(In this post on the PLOS blog, Caren Cooper also expounds on the importance of common nomenclature, with a nod toward Your Wild Life’s naming contest.)

So far, the contest has attracted a spectrum of participants–from kids at the kindergarten level to retired seniors. Menninger says, “Our big goal at Your Wild Life is to engage the public in the study and appreciation of the biodiversity in their daily lives. Specifically with respect to ants, we want folks to learn a little bit about their tiny 6-legged neighbors, the ants who wander about their backyards and playgrounds.”

This project is a testament to how citizen scientists can make a lasting impact on scientific research–whether the impact originates from a source as large as a whale or tiny as an ant.

You can also find Your Wild Life on Facebook and Twitter. And don’t forget to vote for your favorite common name for Forelius!

Want even more critter-friendly citizen science projects? Check out these exciting projects from SciStarter’s Project Finder!

Photos: SchoolofAnts.org, YourWildLife.org

photo: Michael Harvey

That’s how it works: those who discover the species have the privilege of choosing the species name. Most people select a name to honor someone. Even those lengthy Latin names can be popular. For example, when Jason Bond discovered several new species of trapdoor spider, he gave them Latin celebrity names like Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, Aptostichus stephencolberti, and Aptostichus angelinajolieae.

Whether its millions of species on Earth or billions and billions of objects in the sky, keeping orderly accounting is essential, meticulous work. Most importantly, it requires strictly adhering to the accepted conventions for naming. Nevertheless, in any discipline, there seems an inevitable need for two parallel systems: a formal naming system used by professionals and common names used by everyone else. While formal names are designated by an authority, popular names are, by definition, decided by majority rules.

Credit: Your Wild Life

Citizen science focuses on public access and participation in all facets of the scientific method for inquiry, exploration, and discovery. An excellent example of naming that is in keeping with citizen science philosophy is a contest held by Your Wild Life. The purpose of the contest is to find a common name for a very ordinary ant. The ant has only been known by its Latin name, Forelius pruinosus. Contest entries have already been accepted and the voting period to select the best entry is open until April 30: Vote now!

Sometimes nomenclatures can become complicated and even contentious.

Take Astronomy. A little brouhaha arose when the organization Uwingu (that’s Swahili for sky) began crowd-funding through contests to create a list of popular names for planets. Uwingu is planning ahead because the list is for recently discovered and un-named planets as well as those yet-to-be discovered.

The contest began with nominations for a common name for a planet indexed as Alpha Centauri Bb. Xavier Dumusque, who discovered Alpha Centauri Bb, likes the contest to find a name for popular usage that can exist alongside the technical name.

Why is the technical name Alpha Centauri Bb?

position of Alpha Centauri
by Zwergelstern, wiki commons

If an object in the sky is bright enough to have been visible to ancient Greeks and Romans, then it was likely part of a constellation, in this case the constellation Centaurus.  In the late 1500s and early 1600s, Johann Bayer created a star atlas, assigning Greek letters to stars in each constellation, hence the brightest star in Centaurus became Alpha Centauri.

Later astronomers discovered that alpha Centauri was not one star, but three, and so the star system is called Alpha Centauri, and the stars within it are Alpha Centauri A, B, and C. When planets are discovered around stars, the norm is to call them by the name of the star plus a lowercase letter, starting with b. Thus, the planet orbiting the B star in the Alpha Centauri ABC system is called Alpha Centauri Bb.

The naming conventions of the Bayer atlas of about 1,500 stars is just the tip of the iceberg. Around the same time, John Flamsteed catalogued over 3,000 stars, with different designation numbers than Bayer. As astronomical instruments have improved, more and more objects in the sky have been found. Created 120 years ago, the Harvard Revised catalog (now the Yale Bright Star catalog) assigned HR-index numbers to the brightest 8,000 objects in the sky. The Henry Draper catalog, HD-index numbers, contains 250,000 objects (including the HR stars). Thus, a single bright object may be referred to by its Bayer, Flamsteed, HR, or HD name, and the SIMBAD online reference helps astronomers keep track. NED (NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database) does the same for galaxies.

The jargon and designations are almost as infinite as the Universe.

Let’s not forget asteroids and comets, usually discovered by amateur astronomers and given popular names after the discoverer (with the prefix P for periodicals, like P/Halley) and assigned serial numbers.

It isn’t surprising that objects have multiple names. Astronomy has a long history, and objects in the sky are observed and discovered independently at multiple wavelengths (optical, radio, infrared). Even if astronomers were not dealing with the discovery of more and more objects, there would probably be a wellspring of sentiment for better naming conventions and nomenclature.

Maybe that sore point is why, after the opening of the Uwingu contest, the International Astronomical Union felt the need to issue statements asserting their authority in naming exoplanets planets (planets orbiting other stars than the Sun).How open is the International Astronomical Union to public input on common names? They are not particularly anxious to embark on such an endeavor. They made it clear that entries in the Uwingu contest will have no bearing on their decisions.

Alan Stern and Geoff Marcy, planetary astronomers instrumental in Uwingu, estimate that the Milky Way may host 160 billion planets. Do astronomers even have enough time to name them all? Aligned with the aims of citizen science, Uwingu’s push for decision-making that is egalitarian rather than elite is a worthy goal.

The International Astronomical Union says, “Any naming system is a scientific issue that must also work across different languages and cultures in order to support collaborative worldwide research and avoid confusion.”  An appropriate sentiment.

Jupiter, Io and Ganymede
by DUCKofD3ATH on Flickr

But it may be without basis. Uranus, for example, has 27 moons and 26 of them were named after characters in Shakespeare plays. Naming along themes is common. The moons of Jupiter are named after consorts of Zeus (the Greek version of Jupiter), such as the females (Callisto, Io, and Europa) and the male (Ganymede).

Finally, consider the naming of nebulae, which are clouds of glowing dust and gas. They have multiple names too. Nebulae have an index number, but astronomers will also name them based on their shape because a descriptive and catchy name is easier to remember.

Fried Egg Nebula
photo: E. Lagadec

When Eric Lagadec sent a press release about the Fried Egg Nebula, the media ran headlines like “Fried Egg Nebula Cracks Open Rare Hypergiant Star” and “Astronomers Crack the Fried Egg Nebula.” Would the public have heard of the discovery of this yellow hypergiant, an old star before it explodes as a supernova, were it called only by its official name, IRAS 17163-3907?

Citizen science, from crowd-sourcing to crowd-funding, challenges authoritative structures in the culture and norms of scientific practice.

Astronomy has a vibrant community of amateurs as well as general public participation in finding new planets and Galaxies. The underlying premise of citizen science is not free labor, but to provide genuine public access to the scientific enterprise. The old naming structures should share space for public involvement in deciding common names. Naming is a creative part of science and involving the public ensures that discoveries are celebrated and talked about not just at seminars, but during recess, family dinners, and coffee breaks.

MICHIGAN WOLVERINES fans…

Roadkill Survey

Don’t worry if those Wolverines get pummeled by the Syracuse Orange this weekend! You’ll make a fantastic Roadkill Observer or Splatter Spotter. The Roadkill Survey for Road Bikers and Project Splatter invite anyone to share wildlife road casualty data to help identify roadkill “hotspots” for future mitigation projects.

SYRACUSE ORANGE fans…

Cicada Tracker
You’re in the perfect spot to help track the cicadas that emerge once every 17 years across New Jersey, New York and the whole Northeast by planting a homemade temperature sensor in the ground and reporting your findings. Your observations will be put on a map and shared with the entire community. Everyone’s a winner…unless your team loses, of course.

WICHITA STATE SHOCKERS fans…

Clumpy
If you’re too exhausted after the game to harvest wheat in nearby fields, Shockers fans can still help plants by participating in Clumpy. Classify plant cell images by their “clumpiness”, and you can provide researchers with new insights into the progression of bacterial infection in plant cells.

LOUISVILLE CARDINALS fans…

Project Nighthawk
If your team doesn’t live up to the hype, you can always hide your shame in New Hampshire and help scientists study a bird of a different feather. The Ashuelot Valley Environmental Observatory is coordinating volunteer nighthawk surveys on warm evenings in Keene. Submit your observations of booming, peenting, or nighthawks diving.

FOR EVERYONE ELSE…

Planet Four
Check out Planet Four, a citizen science project in which volunteers help planetary scientists identify and measure features on the surface of Mars. By tracking ‘fans’ and ‘blotches’ on the Martian surface, you can help planetary scientists better understand Mars’ climate.