性视界

Scientific analyses and discoveries have been restricted to experts in the past. Scientists聽are being聽bombarded with聽ever increasing data. Until聽now, computers have been doing a good job of analyzing this data. However, computers are good at only those analyses that can be codified. A lot of scientific research聽still relies on human intuition and skills that are difficult for a computer to replicate.

Consider the challenge of classifying galaxies. Astronomers want to categorize many million galaxies (based on color and shape) in photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. While computers are great at identifying color in images, they struggle in identifying shape. However, identifying聽shapes is quite simple for humans. Astronomers could do it themselves but it is not a good usage聽of their聽expertise. Imagine a case in which scientists can use crowdsourcing and get help from normal people to categorize these galaxies. This project (known as Galaxy Zoo) is what Zooniverse started with and it has expanded to more than 50 scientific projects [1].

Exhibit 1:聽Galaxies can be categorized into different shape categories by asking users

What is Zooniverse?

Zooniverse is a website that connects scientists with research collaborators. Research collaborators are normal people and no specific expertise is expected of them. Zooniverse’s聽first project was Galaxy Zoo (described above) [2] and the website has now expanded to initiatives that includes聽monitoring climate change, monitoring sea lion population and transcribing handwritten texts.

Exhibit 2:聽Sample projects on Zooniverse

Managing and incentivizing participation:

Zooniverse鈥檚 community consists of more than 1Mn members [3]. It has certain features that incentivizes participation:

• No prior expertise is needed for joining
• Researchers that publish projects are asked to break the project into pieces that can be analyzed by anyone. For e.g. classifying聽shape in an image or transcribing handwritten text
• Taps into the collaborators鈥� desire to be part of solving big problems in science and environment. All the collaborators are acknowledged if the project leads to a scientific paper

“Every galaxy has a story to tell. They are beautiful, mysterious, and show how amazing our universe is. It was love at first sight when I started in Galaxy Zoo … It is a magical place, and it feels like coming home at last.” – Aida Berges, a popular contributor on Zooniverse鈥檚 Galaxy Zoo Project [4]

Exhibit 3: Long list of collaborators on Zooniverse’s “Snapshot Serengeti” project

• No minimum time commitment. For e.g. collaborators can categorize just 1 image or can categorize 1000s of them

A few features helps in managing the contribution of the crowd:

• Verification聽by other collaborators to ensure accuracy. Every task/ contribution is obtained from 50 different people on an average and the database is populated only if a significant portion of these contributions match
• Active community forum for collaborators to discuss the project as well as related topics. The Galaxy Zoo project forum led to more than 650,000 posts [2]

Exhibit 4: Community forum on Zooniverse’s “Shakespeare’s World” project – a project for transcribing handwritten text

Creating and Capturing聽value

Zooniverse creates value by playing a role in solving scientific problems. Researchers get access to an army of 鈥渇ree interns鈥� to work on problems that are simple for humans聽but can鈥檛 be solved by computers. The Zooniverse community creates 50 years of effort per annum [5][6].

The value of this is clear from the 125+ scientific papers and publications that have been published as a direct result of Zooniverse projects [7]. It聽has also led to completely new scientific discoveries like and .

Zooniverse does not capture this value at present. Most of this value is captured by the researchers that post their projects on the website and benefit from the collaborators or 鈥渇ree interns鈥�. Zooniverse saved research groups $220,000 per project on average [8]. It聽can potentially capture value from this model in the future through:

1. Charging researchers a fee for listing their project on zooniverse.com. The fee could be determined by the # of collaborators or the amount of man-hours work that Zooniverse is able to source
2. License fees from the databases that are created in Zooniverse

Future growth potential:

Due to Internet of Things, the data that we collect from our environment will only increase. We have discussed that existing computing technology is unable to analyze some of this data. Hence, Zooniverse鈥檚 approach of crowdsourcing to analyze scientific data will find greater potential in the future. However, there are some concerns too. The top 10% contributors end up doing 80% of the work [8]. Some projects are not interesting enough and only few collaborators join. Zooniverse would need to overcome these challenges to continue being successful in the future.

Sources:

摆1闭听丑迟迟辫蝉://飞飞飞.锄辞辞苍颈惫别谤蝉别.辞谤驳/辫谤辞箩别肠迟蝉?蝉迟补迟耻蝉=濒颈惫别

摆2闭听丑迟迟辫蝉://别苍.飞颈办颈辫别诲颈补.辞谤驳/飞颈办颈/骋补濒补虫测冲窜辞辞

摆3闭听丑迟迟辫://飞飞飞.飞颈谤别诲.肠辞.耻办/补谤迟颈肠濒别/蝉肠颈别苍肠别-补蝉-补-驳补尘别

摆4闭听丑迟迟辫://肠辞苍迟别苍迟.迟颈尘别.肠辞尘/迟颈尘别/丑别补濒迟丑/补谤迟颈肠濒别/0,8599,1975296,00.丑迟尘濒

摆5闭听丑迟迟辫://飞飞飞.飞颈谤别诲.肠辞.耻办/补谤迟颈肠濒别/蝉肠颈别苍肠别-补蝉-补-驳补尘别

摆6闭听丑迟迟辫://测补濒别蝉肠颈别苍迟颈蹿颈肠.辞谤驳/迟丑别蝉肠辞辫别/2016/04/迟丑别-蝉肠颈别苍迟颈蝉迟-颈苍-耻蝉-补濒濒-丑辞飞-肠谤辞飞诲蝉辞耻谤肠颈苍驳-颈苍-蝉肠颈别苍肠别-颈蝉-肠丑补苍驳颈苍驳-迟丑别-飞辞谤濒诲/

摆7闭听丑迟迟辫蝉://飞飞飞.锄辞辞苍颈惫别谤蝉别.辞谤驳/补产辞耻迟/辫耻产濒颈肠补迟颈辞苍蝉

摆8闭听丑迟迟辫蝉://补谤蝉迟别肠丑苍颈肠补.肠辞尘/蝉肠颈别苍肠别/2015/01/尘辞蝉迟-辫补谤迟颈肠颈辫补苍迟蝉-颈苍-肠颈迟颈锄别苍-蝉肠颈别苍肠别-辫谤辞箩别肠迟蝉-驳颈惫别-耻辫-补濒尘辞蝉迟-颈尘尘别诲颈补迟别濒测/