Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

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Some Citizen Science Predictions

January 5, 2015 By Chandra Clarke Leave a Comment

I’ve been covering the citizen science movement for a very long time now; indeed, I’ve been writing about citizen science in one form or another since before it was really a movement.

Recently, I sat down and had a think about what I had seen in the past, as well as some of trends that I’ve been noticing. Today, I’m going to review some of those and also go out on a limb with some predictions as to where I see citizen science heading.

It’s Definitely a Thing, Now

In the last three or so years, I’ve noticed a sharp increase in the amount of mainstream interest in citizen science. Where it was once just the province of a smaller group of hardcore geeks (think: early adopters of the SETI@Home client), it now seems like everyone is talking about citizen science. Anecdotally, I’ve been interviewed by a fairly wide range of media outlets — everything from CBC Radio to Woman’s World. On the hard data side, this screen shot of the Google Trends entry on citizen science bears this out:

Source: Google Trends
Source: Google Trends

 

There’s More Variety Than Ever

Citizen science projects are busting out all over, so there’s now a really impressive range of both topics and types of projects. Whereas once your choice was between the Christmas Bird Count, deploying BOINC, or playing with images from Mars, now you can do everything from raising Monarch butterflies to being a paleontologist in your kitchen.

Citizen Science is Converging with Other Movements

Open source, participatory civics, activism, maker spaces, crowdfunding: citizen science is part of an even broader shift across many segments of society, and in some cases it’s increasingly hard to see where one movement begins and another ends.

For example, Pybossa is open source software that will allow you to create your own citizen science project; meanwhile the Open Space Agency is open sourcing the plans for pro-astronomy grade telescope. Projects like Skywarn or Safecast are civic applications that want you to help your fellow citizens. Extreme citizen science tries to take the concept to developing countries for an empowering approach, while the DIY and maker crowds dive into all sorts of aspects of science, including biology.

Gaming is Here to Stay

There are an increasing number of citizen science games, some with the data processing and manipulation right out front like EteRNA, and some not quite so much, like Reverse the Odds. This not to be confused with the gamification of citizen science projects: that is, the addition of game elements like leaderboards, badges, scoring, etc., to an otherwise non-game-based project. (The jury is still out as to how effective gamification is at improving user retention.)

Point and Click Projects Are Here to Stay… For a While

Zooniverse has pretty much perfected the model of citizen science projects wherein users are presented with a bit of data (most often an image) and are asked to perform a simple task (usually identify and locate a specific feature). As more and more people get interested in citizen science in general, the platform (and others like it) will likely continue to register new users faster than it ‘loses’ them. This is a good thing, because the participation dropoff curves appear to be pretty steep. Eventually, however, as more interesting ways to do citizen science continue to proliferate, and if we ever see a ‘peak citizen science’ (i.e., the most number of people likely to do citizen science are already doing it), this will no longer be the case.

On the flip side, I think that image processing technology will replace the need for human participation here sooner, rather than later, in part because mega-companies like Google and Baidu are throwing boatloads of money at the problem, and because technology improvement curves are much steeper than we realize.

But Apps are Where It’s At

The number of citizen science apps — and by this I mean the programs that run on tablets or smartphones — is going up, and that has opened up a whole new frontier in citizen science. Whereas before, most citizen science has been about data processing, apps allow for more data collection. Apps like Sound Around You or Loss of the Night are good examples.

However, I think we’ve only just barely scratched the surface of what’s possible with current mobile technology. The average smart phone now comes with an accelerometer, a camera, a video camera, a magnetometer, an ambient light detector, GPS, and obviously, a speaker and a microphone, all as standard equipment. Considering how creative people are getting with simple GoPro cameras and their special mounts, or cameras attached to drones just for fun, there’s clearly a lot of scope for some much more interesting citizen science apps than what we’re currently doing.

That Internet of Things We Keep Hearing About

As sensors become cheaper and cheaper, and the Internet becomes even more ubiquitous, the average citizen, with or without connection to an official citizen science project, will soon be able to measure and track pretty much anything. (Seriously, check out those links to see what’s coming, especially if you’re looking for ideas.) Anyone will be able to deploy sensors, and this will in turn generate huge amounts of highly granular data. Indeed, most of us will deploy sensors, even if not entirely deliberately, because they’re going to be embedded in the products we use.

In some ways, we’re just beginning to build a massive nervous system for ourselves and our planet, and it’s going to teach us all sorts of amazing things. We don’t yet know what we don’t know.

But it’s going to be very interesting. Stay tuned.

 

 

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Citizen science games: the ultimate list

April 1, 2014 By Chandra Clarke 2 Comments

This week, by request: a huge list of citizen science games you can play and enjoy while contributing to the greater good. Go have fun!

Astro Drone – Created by the European Space Agency, fly your Parrot AR drone in virtual space and compare yourself with real-life astronauts. Data from your successful flights will be used to train robots on how to navigate their environment. Website: http://www.astrodrone.org/. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/astro-drone/id597477649?ls=1&mt=8. Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.rwb.spacegame

Apetopia – Run over a landscape and then choose the door with the colour that best matches the sky at that moment. Collect coins and avoid obstacles too. The game helps determine perceived color differences; player choices are used to model better color metrics. Website: http://colors.htw-berlin.de

Beat the Bots – Are you smarter than a spambot? VouchSafe has built an anti-spam program that uses the way humans think to try to outsmart spammers. Draw a line with your mouse to join an object to its best match, or circle the object that doesn’t belong. Yeah, okay, this isn’t really citizen science, but defeating spam is definitely for the greater good, don’t you think? Facebook: https://apps.facebook.com/beatthebots/

Cell Slider – Join the effort to defeat cancer by reviewing images to spot cancer cells. http://www.cellslider.net/ NOTE: This project is now archived.

Collabio – Participate in social psychology research. Collabio is a Facebook application that wants you to guess tags that other friends have used to describe an individual. Points are awarded according to the number of other friends who have agreed with each tag. Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/collabio/

Cropland Capture – Want to help improve the world’s food security? Help to improve basic information about where cropland is located on the Earth’s surface. Website: http://www.geo-wiki.org/games/croplandcapture/

Dizeez – Help researchers link various genes to diseases. The game is very simple: You are shown one gene name, and five diseases. Pick the disease that is linked to the gene to get points, and get as many points as you can in one minute. Website: http://sulab.scripps.edu/dizeez/

Eterna – A beautiful visual puzzler. Help design RNA strands in this wonderfully rendered game. Website: http://eterna.cmu.edu/web/

Eyewire – Another gorgeous looking game, this one has you mapping and manipulating neurons in 3D. Gameplay helps researchers discover how neurons connect and network to process information. Website: http://www.eyewire.org/

Foldit – Solve puzzles involving protein molecules. Knowing the structure of a protein is key to understanding how it works and to targeting it with drugs. Website: http://fold.it/portal/

Fraxinus – Help scientists learn why the ash tree is susceptible to a fungus with this Candy Crush-like puzzler. Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/fraxinusgame/

Forgotten Island – An explosion has destroyed the island’s biology lab and scattered living specimens across the strange landscape. A robot named DOC73R-CY3N53 demands that re-classify his specimens and rebuild the island. Website: http://www.citizensort.org/web.php/forgottenisland

Happy Match – In this one, players participate in scientific research by playing a card/memory style game, classifying photos of animal, plant and insect species (currently moths, rays, and sharks.) Website: http://www.citizensort.org/web.php/happymatch

Malaria Hunters – Diagnosing a single case of malaria can take up to 30 minutes of a technician’s time, and drastically slows down a health care system’s ability to respond to an outbreak. This game aims to create a global network of “spotters” to speed this process up. The original browser game is MalariaSpot (malariaspot.org), or you can play it on your Apple device (iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/malaria-hunter/id736229727?mt=8) or your Android device (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotlab.malariaspot&hl).

Martian Map Room – Help secure the future of humanity by exploring a potential home away from home. Explore Mars and help map it in the Martian Map Room by NASA. http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/maproom#/WhyMapMars

NanoDoc – This game wants you to design new nanoparticle strategies and nanovehicles to kill tumors. One of the biggest problems in cancer therapy, for example, is knowing what dose to give. Too little and you don’t kill the cancer. Too much, and you start killing healthy tissue. Playing this game refines our understanding. Website: http://nanodoc.org

MOLT – Help diagnose pathologies by examining microscopic data. This game has proven that non-professional gamers diagnosed malaria infected red-blood-cells with an accuracy within 1.25% a trained professional. All you need to do is spot and click on an infected blood cell. Website: http://biogames.ee.ucla.edu/

OneUp – This is a two-player metatagging game, and the best description entered wins. By tagging in this game, you are helping to preserve archival images, videos, and audio clips for future generations. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/one-up/id787595098?mt=8

OpenCorporates – Help keep big corporations accountable by datamining their SEC filings. Website: http://opencorporates.com/games/secfilings

Play to Cure™: Genes in Space — Collect a fictional substance dubbed Element Alpha, which is really genetic cancer data. Map a route through the densest parts of the Alpha, shoot asteroids to collect points and upgrade your ship. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/play-to-cure-genes-in-space/id784643890?mt=8. Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guerillatea.elementalpha

Phlyo – This game contributes to genetic research. Move colour blocks on the screen to match patterns and come up with new combinations. Website: http://phylo.cs.mcgill.ca/

Phrase Detectives – A language annotation game. Help researchers create a linguistic resource by noting the relationships between words and phrases; this helps train future generations of language tools. Earn points, get promoted, and see your name on the leaderboard. Website: https://anawiki.essex.ac.uk/phrasedetectives/. Facebook: https://apps.facebook.com/phrasedetectives/

Project Nightjar – Help scientists learn more about human perceptual abilities by trying to spot nightjars (birds) or their nests. Website: http://nightjar.exeter.ac.uk/story/games

Pyramid Tag – This is a single-player image tagging game, where the best descriptions win. This metadata game gathers new information about archival materials. By playing this one, you make it easier to for the world to find and use digital media from collections in libraries, museums, and universities. iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/pyramid-tag/id787644980?mt=8

Quantum Moves – Help build a quantum supercomputer. Every time you play, your mouse movements simulate laser beams used in a real quantum lab to move atoms onto their correct pathways. Achieve the best scores in “QComp” and “Beat AI” labs to win. Website: http://www.scienceathome.org/

Stall Catchers – Play a game, speed up Alzheimer’s research. https://stallcatchers.com/main

The Cure – A biology-based card game where you try to assemble the best hand to win. The combos you make actually help researchers make better predictions about breast cancer, e.g., whether a cancer will metastasize and how quickly. Website: http://genegames.org/cure/

Train Robots – Help robots become as smart as humans. Players teach the robot how to move blocks using clear and correct commands. Website: http://www.trainrobots.com

Volunteer Science – Play games and take surveys to help scientist.s answer the big questions. https://volunteerscience.com/

Wordrobe – Play a word game and help improve the Groningen Meaning Bank (GMB), which in turn will improve natural language software tools. Website: http://wordrobe.housing.rug.nl/Wordrobe/public/HomePage.aspx

 

Have I missed any? Let me know in the comments below!

Screenshot image credit: Fraxinus

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