{"id":4569,"date":"2017-03-20T15:14:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T19:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/zooniverse-solving-scientific-problems-through-crowdsourcing\/"},"modified":"2017-03-20T17:37:48","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T21:37:48","slug":"zooniverse-scientific-research-through-crowdsourcing","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/zooniverse-scientific-research-through-crowdsourcing\/","title":{"rendered":"Zooniverse: Scientific Research through Crowdsourcing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientific analyses and discoveries have been restricted to experts in the past. Scientists\u00a0are being\u00a0bombarded with\u00a0ever increasing data. Until\u00a0now, 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\u00a0still relies on human intuition and skills that are difficult for a computer to replicate.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/a> \"\"<\/a>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\u00a0shapes is quite simple for humans. Astronomers could do it themselves but it is not a good usage\u00a0of their\u00a0expertise. Imagine a case in which scientists can use crowdsourcing and get help from normal people to categorize these galaxies. <\/span>This project (known as Galaxy Zoo) is what Zooniverse started with and it has expanded to more than 50 scientific projects [1].<\/p>\n

Exhibit 1:\u00a0Galaxies can be categorized into different shape categories by asking users<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

What is Zooniverse?<\/b><\/h2>\n

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\u00a0first project was Galaxy Zoo (described above) [2] and the website has now expanded to initiatives that includes\u00a0monitoring climate change, monitoring sea lion population and transcribing handwritten texts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Exhibit 2:\u00a0Sample projects on Zooniverse<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Managing and incentivizing participation:<\/b><\/h2>\n

Zooniverse\u2019s community consists of more than 1Mn members [3]. It has certain features that incentivizes participation:<\/p>\n