Citizen Science - how you can make a contribution to study of climate change

[From Climate Progress - “the indispensable blog” — Tom Friedman, New York Times –BSA]

http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/19/so-you-want-to-be-a-citizen-scientist/

[..]
Online social networking is no longer just about tagging a picture of your dog on Facebook or announcing to the world what you’re having for dinner on Twitter. Scientific institutions worldwide are beginning to harness the power of online social networking for scientific research. Online communities are an ideal vehicle for matching professional scientists with armies of enthusiastic amateurs. This corps of citizen scientists has the capacity to capture far more data over a vastly expanded geographical spectrum than professional scientists can on their own.
The USA National Phenology Network is one organization that is reaching out to citizen scientists via the Internet. People have used phenology, the study of the timing of lifecycle events of plants and animals, to detect the signs of spring since the early 18th century. The rising threat posed by global warming has spurred scientists to put phenology to another use: to detect the signs of climate change.
Plants and animals are very sensitive to even the smallest changes in their climates. Shifts in the timing of their lifecycle events can therefore be an important indicator in the study of climate change and its effects. Slight changes can have huge repercussions; mutual relationships between species and even entire systems can begin to fall apart.
USA-NPN is asking people across the country to record the phenology of their local flora and then report it online. Amateur hikers and photographers can also participate in NPN’s Project Budburst. They are asked to identify the phenological stage of the flowers and plants they see using information provided by the project’s website. The participants record the location, longitude, and latitude of what they observe. Eventually, Project Budburst will use this information to include real-time mapping with Google maps.
Relying on anonymous volunteers to collect data that will be entered into important scientific databases certainly raises questions about the reliability of the information gathered. Yet it turns out that most of the data is remarkably accurate, and researchers do perform checks on anomalous data. What’s more, the large pool of samples collected by a large group of volunteers diminishes the impact of any faulty data.
This creative new use for social networking also answers critics’ accusations about the frivolity of Facebook, Twitter, and other sites with proof that online networking has the potential to mobilize users to actively participate in innovative programs. Jack Weltzin, executive director of NPN, has said that in the future NPN hopes to make it possible for people to submit their findings via Twitter. NPN, a nonprofit organization, also hopes that iPhone and Facebook applications might be created to more easily facilitate volunteer participation.
Climate change scientists are not the only members of the scientific profession to tap into the potential of these online communities. In addition to tracking climate change, the information participants collect can help scientists predict wildfires and pollen production and monitor droughts as well as detect and control invasive species. Other online projects, such as “The Great World Wide Star Count,” rely on volunteer participation to gauge the level of light pollution across the globe. Several websites are also dedicated to tracking the migratory and breeding patterns of animals such as birds, frogs, and butterflies. All of these observations will augment the databases available to scientists attempting to understand annual fluctuations.

Science 2.0: New online tools may revolutionize research

[Excellent article on how Web 2.0 tools are transforming science. The 2 projects mentioned have been funded by CANARIE in the latest NEP program amongst a total of 11 similar projects . For more examples of how web 2.0 is revolutionizing science please see my Citizen Science Blog. Thanks to Richard Ackerman for some of the FriendFeed pointers. Some excerpts from CBC website– BSA]

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/01/08/f-tech-research.html

Citizen Science
http://citizen-science.blogspot.com/

CANARIE NEP program
http://www.canarie.ca/funding/nep/eoi.html

Described as an extension of the internet under the ocean, the Venus Coastal Observatory off Canada's west coast provides oceanographers with a continuous stream of undersea data once accessible only through costly marine expeditions. When its sister facility Neptune Canada launches next summer, the observatories' eight nodes will provide ocean scientists with an unprecedented wealth of information.
Sifting through all that data, however, can be quite a task. So the observatories, with the help of CANARIE Inc., operator of Canada's advanced research network, are developing a set of tools they call Oceans 2.0 to simplify access to the data and help researchers work with it in new ways. Some of their ideas look a lot like such popular consumer websites as Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia and Digg.
And they're not alone. This set of online interaction technologies called Web 2.0 is finding its way into the scientific community.
Michael Nielsen, a Waterloo, Ont., physicist who is working on a book on the future of science, says online tools could change science to an extent that hasn't happened since the late 17th century, when scientists started publishing their research in scientific journals.
One way to manage the data boom will involve tagging data, much as users of websites like Flickr tag images or readers of blogs and web pages can "Digg" articles they approve. On Oceans 2.0, researchers might attach tags to images or video streams from undersea cameras, identifying sightings of little-known organisms or examples of rare phenomena.
The Canadian Space Science Data Portal (CSSDP), based at the University of Alberta, is also working on online collaboration tools. Robert Rankin, a University of Alberta physics professor and CSSDP principal investigator, foresees scientists attaching tags to specific data items containing occurrences of a particular process or phenomenon in which researchers are interested.
"You've essentially got a database that has been developed using this tagging process," he says.
If data tagging is analogous to Flickr or Digg, other initiatives look a bit like Facebook.
Pirenne envisions Oceans 2.0 including a Facebook-like social networking site where researchers could create profiles showing what sort of work they do and what expertise they have. When a scientist is working on a project and needs specific expertise — experience in data mining and statistical analysis of oceanographic data, for example — he or she could turn to this facility to find likely collaborators.
"It's a really exciting time," Lok says, "a really active time for Science 2.0."

it got lots of buzz on FriendFeed, there are multiple mentions of it

http://friendfeed.com/e/b2dc0a15-e076-4d2b-8771-d0e37733077e/Science-2-0-on-CBC/

http://friendfeed.com/e/7649d8b6-9f28-424e-9344-875bf2abfc25/Several-conference-attendees-are-quoted-in-this/

(The conference Eva's referring to is Science Online 2009.)

http://friendfeed.com/e/dcfc7f91-82e9-5aac-c7a4-b2cfea8f6b40/Science-2-0-New-online-tools-may-revolutionize/

http://friendfeed.com/e/333a5973-3aab-a3f7-0b84-993e20b94ce4/Science-2-0-New-online-tools-may-revolutionize/

http://friendfeed.com/e/c1824ca1-93d5-452a-b404-199b5d8e04d3/Nature-Network-in-the-news-Expression-Patterns/

http://friendfeed.com/e/9a2d1d68-fb76-c5a6-c43e-3909d7bebec4/Science-2-0-article-quotes-four-ScienceOnline-09/

http://friendfeed.com/e/556befb8-bfa0-4c3e-8c7a-63b94243bf5e/Science-2-0-article-quotes-four-ScienceOnline-09/

http://friendfeed.com/e/03dca000-9f33-849c-b40a-b22178339428/CBCnews-Article-on-Science2-0/

e-science, virtual organisations, data curation

[Thanks to Richard Ackerman for this pointer, and I agree with his assessment there are lots of interesting presentations here –BSA]

A lot of interesting presentations here

Proceedings from the ARL/CNI Fall Forum
October 16-17, 2008
Arlington, Virginia
http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/fallforumproceedings/forum08proceedings.shtml

E-Science: Trends, Transformations & Responses
E-Science: Trends, Transformations & Responses
Chris Greer, Director, National Coordination Office (NCO) for the multiagency Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program
Audio [MP3 22 min.] | Slides [PPS 24.7 MB]
A Case Study in E-Science: Building Ecological Informatics Solutions for Multi-Decadal Research
William Michener, Research Professor (Biology) and Associate Director, Long-Term Ecological Research Network Office, University of New Mexico
Audio [MP3 26 min.] | Slides [PPS 8 MB]
Making a Quantum Leap to eResearch Support
Rick Luce, Vice Provost and Director of University Libraries, Emory University Libraries
Audio [MP3 19 min.] | Slides [PDF 2.5 MB]
Data Curation: Issues and Challenges
Transition or Transform? Repositioning the Library for the Petabyte Era
Liz Lyon, Director, UKOLN
Audio [MP3 23 min.] | Slides [PPS 10.3 MB]
Research and Data
Fran Berman, Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego, and Co-chair Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access
Audio [MP3 44 min.] | Slides [PPS 5.5 MB]
Data Curation Issues and Challenges
Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Dean of University Libraries and Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center, Johns Hopkins University
Audio [MP3 20 min.] | Slides [PPS 424 KB]
Data Curation Panel
Pam Bjornson, Director-General, Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information
Audio [MP3 6 min.] | Slides [PPS 1.9 MB]
Supporting Virtual Organizations
The Coming Age of Virtual Organizations: The Early History and Future of Geographically Distributed Collaboration
Thomas A. Finholt, Director, Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work (CREW) and Research Professor & Associate Dean for Research and Innovation, School of Information, University of Michigan
Audio [MP3 24 min.] | Slides [PPS 7.3 MB]
Cyberinfrastructure for Discovery, Learning, and Engagement:

The nanoHUB Experience
Mark Lundstrom, Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor, Director, Network for Computational Nanotechnology, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University
Audio [MP3 22 min.] | Slides [PPS 3.5 MB]
Reactor Panel: Supporting the Virtual Organization: A Role for Libraries?
Medha Devare, Life Sciences and Bioinformatics Librarian, Mann Library, Cornell University
Audio [MP3 20 min.] | Slides [PPS 3.2 MB]
Reactor Panel: Supporting the Virtual Organization
D. Scott Brandt, Associate Dean for Research, Purdue University Library
Audio [MP3 7 min.] | Slides [PPS 4.3 MB]

Web 2.0 and social networking for scientists

[Excellent slide deck on various web 2.0 tools available for scientists and researchers, and the impact they are having on research. Thanks to Richard Ackerman for this pointer-BSA]

http://scilib.typepad.com/science_library_pad/2008/12/science-networking-online.html

Many eyes

From the New York Times -- >

Novelties
Lines and Bubbles and Bars, Oh My! New Ways to Sift Data By Anne Eisenberg

PEOPLE share their videos on YouTube and their photos at Flickr. Now they can share more technical types of displays: graphs, charts and other visuals they create to help them analyze data buried in spreadsheets, tables or text.

At an experimental Web site, Many Eyes, (www.many-eyes.com), users can upload the data they want to visualize, then try sophisticated tools to generate interactive displays. These might range from maps of relationships in the New Testament to a display of the comparative frequency of words used in speeches by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

The site was created by scientists at the Watson Research Center of I.B.M. in Cambridge, Mass., to help people publish and discuss graphics in a group. Those who register at the site can comment on one another's work, perhaps visualizing the same information with different tools and discovering unexpected patterns in the data.

Collaboration like this can be an effective way to spur insight, said Pat Hanrahan, a professor of computer science at Stanford whose research includes scientific visualization. "When analyzing information, no single person knows it all," he said. "When you have a group look at data, you protect against bias. You get more perspectives, and this can lead to more reliable decisions."

The site is the brainchild of Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda B.
Viégas, two I.B.M. researchers at the Cambridge lab. Dr. Wattenberg, a computer scientist and mathematician, says sophisticated visualization tools have historically been the province of professionals in academia, business and government. "We want to bring visualization to a whole new audience," he said — to people who have had relatively few ways to create and discuss such use of data.

"The conversation about the data is as important as the flow of data from the database," he said.

The Many Eyes site, begun in January 2007, offers 16 ways to present data, from stack graphs and bar charts to diagrams that let people map relationships. TreeMaps, showing information in colorful rectangles, are among the popular tools.

Initially, the site offered only analytical tools like graphs for visualizing numerical data. "The interesting thing we noticed was that users kept trying to upload blog posts, and entire books," Dr. Viégas said, so the site added techniques for unstructured text. One tool, called an interleaved tag cloud, lets users compare side by side the relative frequencies of the words in two passages — for instance, President Bush's State of the Union addresses in 2002 and 2003.

Almost all the tools are interactive, allowing users to change parameters, zoom in or out or show more information when the mouse moves over an image, Dr. Wattenberg said.

Users can embed images and links to their visualizations in their Web sites or blogs, just as they can embed YouTube videos. "It's great that people can paste in a YouTube video of cats" on their blogs, Dr.
Viégas said. "So why not a visual that gives you some insight into the sea of data that surrounds us? I might find one thing; someone else, something completely different, and that's where the conversation starts."

Rich Hoeg, a technology manager who lives in New Hope, Minn., and has a blog at econtent.typepad.com, was so taken with the possibilities for group collaboration that he wrote a tutorial on using Many Eyes as part of his series called "NorthStar Nerd Tutorials."

[snip]RSS Feed:

Impact of Citizen Science on academic research

[Good article on the impact of citizen science on academic research.
Cyber-infrastructure will not only impact the way we do science at
universities but with the advent of clouds, grids, SOA, remote
instrumentation and Web 2.0 I believe we are entering a new renaissance era
where amateur scientists can have access to the same tools and techniques
used by professional researchers. Of course these same tools also allow us
to move power hungry laboratory and computer equipment off of our campuses
to more environmentally friendly zero carbon renewable energy sites -
accessible to all. From a posting on Dewayne Hendricks list. BSA]



http://www.nypost.com/seven/08242008/postopinion/postopbooks/crowdsourcing_1
25790.htm



"CROWDSOURCING"

Wired writer Jeff Howe's "Crowdsourcing" thesis is this: the "experts" -
whether they're top-tier physicists or movie-studio heads - don't have a
monopoly on the creation or distribution of information anymore. The crowd,
through technology that's been available for little more than a decade, has
broken that monopoly, transforming everything from entertainment to cancer
research.

.

Howe introduces this change with an amusing story about birdwatchers. Until
the Internet age, it was the experts who decided whether a bird is extinct
or not - and those experts still think they do. A few years ago, the
official scientific birdwatchers decided, after much study, that an extinct
bird in Mexico was actually not extinct.

But the amateur birdwatchers had long beaten them to this discovery with
their own online literature. "The birdwatchers were like, 'That's
interesting, but we did that a few years ago,' " one professional
ornithologist told Howe.

.

Before the 19th century, it was amateurs - often, but not always, from the
aristocracy - who made scientific discoveries, writing to each other to
share knowledge through informal societies like "the Invisible College,"
which later became the Royal Society.

But by the 1800s, universities and their increasingly specialized graduates
were jealous of the competition posed by amateurs, and started to shut them
out - successfully, until recently, when amateurs in fields ranging from
organic chemistry to investigative journalism could once again fairly
compete with the pros.

.

In science, an Italian homemaker with a heretofore unused organic chemistry
degree can put her talents to use after she puts her kids to bed, helping
companies like Procter and Gamble solve problems their own scientists
couldn't solve through a venture called InnoCentive. Participating companies
pay successful problem-solvers tens of thousands of dollars for their
breakthroughs. Video-renter Netflix has a $1 million reward on offer for
anyone who can increase a component of its customer-service software by 10
percent.

Armchair Astronomer - Galaxy Zoo

[Extracts from the Economist magazine article -- BSA]

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11614176&fsrc=RSS

An armchair astronomer discovers something very odd

THE task of peering into the cosmos and discovering strange new galaxies sounds like a job for astronomers armed with big and very expensive telescopes. But almost a year ago that all changed when a group of stargazers decided to ask the public to help in a project to explore the northern sky.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey had been looking in this part of space for 16 years, producing so much information that astronomers assumed they would never get through it. So the public was let loose, to help sort what they had found. The scheme is called the Galaxy Zoo project.

...within a month of the opening, Hanny van Arkel, a physics teacher from the Netherlands, posted a message on the zoo’s forum about some strange blue stuff she had spotted and asked what it might be.

By January the zoo’s professional keepers had started to pay attention to what the teacher had called a voorwerp, the Dutch word for object. Now it is becoming famous.

What this object might be was a complete mystery at first. It was initially thought to be a distant galaxy, says Chris Lintott, an Oxford University astronomer involved in the project. But after further study astronomers realised that there were no stars in it, and so it must be a cloud of gas. But why the gas was so hot (about 15,000ºC) was a mystery, because there seemed to be no stars to heat it up.

The weird blob could become immortalised as Hanny’s Voorwerp, the name given to the object in a paper Dr Lintott and his colleagues are submitting to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. And towards the end of the year, if the mission to service the Hubble telescope goes as planned, a high-quality image of the voorwerp could emerge.

Earlier projects in distributed computing, such as SETI@home, which searched for extraterrestrial life, have used the power of millions of home computers. But more recently, scientists have begun to realise that distributed human brain power itself can be a useful commodity, as in working out the shape of proteins. Dr Szalay says that the voorwerp episode has shown how immensely valuable the public can be.

When the data were put online Dr Szalay thought it was only a matter of time before someone made a big discovery. “It just happened much faster than we thought.” In the past year 40m classifications of galaxies have been submitted on 1m galactic objects in the Galaxy Zoo. Dr Lintott says that the project has proved that the public en masse is as good as professional astronomers at classifying galaxies.

The next step is to ask people to do more complicated things, such as keeping an eye out for weird objects, which is bound to appeal to armchair astronomers. Hanny’s object had been there for decades, unnoticed in the astronomical archives. The idea now is for the public to explore strange new galaxies; to seek out new voorwerps and to boldly go where no amateur has gone before.