1 of 85

Welcome!

By participating in today’s event, you acknowledge that you have read and will comply with our Code of Conduct, http://bit.ly/CitSciLeadersCode.

You’re listening to informal chat with our speakers: Cliff Johnson, Cait Bailey, Carrie Seltzer, Greg Newman, Holli Kohl, Jessica Bean, Marc Kuchner.

We’ll start the program at 3:00 pm EDT.

2 of 85

Why choose an existing platform?

Pros:

  • Save time, money
  • Benefit from technical expertise: data management, participant policies
  • Tap into an existing volunteer base

Cons:

  • Each platform has constraints, limited flexibility
  • Less control over participant experience

3 of 85

More choice = more better for more people!

4 of 85

September 21 event details:

3:00 Welcome - Sarah, Reanna, Marc

3:05 Cait Bailey, Anecdata

3:15 Greg Newman, CitSci.org

3:25 Cliff Johnson, Zooniverse

3:35 Jessica Bean, FieldScope

3:45 Carrie Seltzer, iNaturalist

3:55 Holli Kohl, GLOBE Observer

4:05 Discussion among panelists; Discussion with audience

4:28 Closing announcements

4:30-5:00 Informal chat with all who care to stay

5 of 85

Cait Bailey

Anecdata

6 of 85

The Anecdata team

MDI Biological Laboratory campus in Salsbury Cove, ME

7 of 85

About Anecdata

  • Free participatory science platform anyone can use
  • Collaborate with your teammates to design a project
  • Data are immediately available to analysis or download
  • It’s a communication platform as well as a data management tool
  • There’s an app!

8 of 85

What projects work well?

Projects that work well on Anecdata:

  • More complex biodiversity protocols, or ones that involve species absence data
  • Water quality monitoring
  • Trash cleanups
  • Collection of non-biodiversity imagery

Projects that (probably) would work best on another platform:

  • Biodiversity reports - Consider using iNaturalist!
  • Image classification or transcription - Consider using Zooniverse!

9 of 85

Who’s using Anecdata?

Active projects

> 300

Users

> 15,500

Observations

> 111,000

Photos and images

> 74,000

10 of 85

Participation Models

  1. Open projects: Anyone can create an Anecdata account and join the project.
  2. Membership by request: Anyone can request to join, but participation has to be approved by a project administrator.
  3. Closed membership: Only people who project administrators have invited can join.
  4. (new!) Anonymous participation: Anyone can enter data without creating an Anecdata account.

11 of 85

Ways to explore data

Tabular feed

Spatial

Analysis

These views can also be embedded on other websites!

12 of 85

Ways to communicate

Comment on observations

Post in project forums

Send direct messages

13 of 85

SciStarter integration

Project managers can opt in to share their project with SciStarter’s database of participatory science projects.

If you’re a SciStarter user and you’re participating in a SciStarter-enabled project, your participation in the project will also appear on your SciStarter dashboard.

14 of 85

General trends:

Topics:

  • Coastal and Marine
  • Phenology
  • Trash and Litter
  • Informal Science Education

Project Organizers:

  • Nonprofits
  • Academics
  • K-12 Teachers

Countries:

  • Continental US
  • Puerto Rico
  • Bolivia
  • Brazil
  • Estonia

Languages:

  • English
  • Spanish
  • Portuguese

15 of 85

Greg Newman

CitSci.org

16 of 85

CitSci - Your Free & Open Participatory Science Platform

Greg Newman, Stacy Lynn, Sarah Newman, Brandon Budnicki,

Guhan Dheenadayalan Sivakami, Lee Casuto

CitSci | Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory

Colorado State University

Fort Collins, Colorado

17 of 85

18 of 85

What’s Been Studied

19 of 85

Overview

20 of 85

Key Manager Features

Upload Monitoring Locations in Bulk

21 of 85

Key Participant Features

22 of 85

Flexible Membership & Privacy

  • Open
      • Anyone with an account can join
  • Member-based
      • Anyone can ask to join, but requires manager approval
  • Invitation-based
      • Managers invite members (partial implementation)

  • Public
    • Open access data
  • Private
    • Data accessible to project members only
  • Location Blurring
    • Data blurred to user selected level (coming this year and done the right way)

23 of 85

24 of 85

25 of 85

26 of 85

27 of 85

28 of 85

29 of 85

30 of 85

31 of 85

Platform Integrations

Air Table is a powerful next-gen platform to streamline workflows that augments CitSci users workflows with additional graphing, charting, spreadsheet manipulation, and sharing of data. We make it easy for you to share CitSci observation data with your Air Table bases. Note - AirTable pricing may apply.

Air Table (New!)

SciStarter

Share project details with SciStarter and be listed on the platform. Note: we are fixing a glitch in the SciStarter Participant API which shares your CitSci observations with your SciStarter dashboard - we plan to have that back online soon. Also note that we are soon to enable single sign on (SSO) for logging into CitSci with your SciStarter account

In the Works - R Plugin and Google SSO

32 of 85

33 of 85

Good Fit:

Poor Fit:

  • Run many projects at same organization and use org hubs
  • Use complex data collection protocols
  • Do question-first participatory science
  • Collect presence/absence species data and other measurements about them
  • Want to both collect data and classify associated images on Zooniverse
  • Run statewide programs
  • Want a water quality monitoring project
  • Need to assign volunteers to sites
  • Want to use our Open API to build your own app and embed content into your own website
  • Checklists
  • Presence only biodiversity (iNaturalist)
  • Need AI-species identification tools (iNat)
  • Anonymous participation (Anecdata)
  • Image classification only (Zooniverse)
  • Classroom focus; specific protocols (Globe)
  • Education is your main goal (Fieldscope and Globe)
  • Kids under 13

34 of 85

Cliff Johnson

Co-Director & Science Lead

Adler Planetarium & Northwestern Univ.

Zooniverse

35 of 85

The Zooniverse…

…is a free, online platform for people-powered research.

~100 Active Projects

>400 Total Launched since 2009

~1 Launch per Week since 2017

2.6 Million Volunteers

Wide Range of Domains:

Astronomy, Ecology, Humanities, Biomedical, and more

>400

Publications

>150,000

Daily Classifications

36 of 85

Zooniverse Projects

Example:

Galaxy Zoo: DECaLS

314,000 images

7.5 million classifications

Typical Project

10k-100k Subjects

100k-1M Classifications

1k-10k Volunteers

37 of 85

Common Project Needs

Tasks / Tools: marking, multiple-choice question, text, dropdown

Flexible Data Formats: image, video, text, JSON data, audio

38 of 85

Free Project Builder: zooniverse.org/lab

Docs: help.zooniverse.org

39 of 85

Translations

Mobile App

Talk: Project Discussion Tool

Project Builder Features

40 of 85

Researcher Tools

Ready to build a project?

  • Programmatic Access and Project Management
    • Python API Client and Command Line Interface tool
    • Real-time data orchestration app (Caesar)
    • Support for external machine learning systems via API
  • Data Analysis Assistance
    • Zooniverse Aggregation Software
    • For NASA teams: data science consultations

Build Project

Zoo Internal Review

Beta

Test

Launch!

41 of 85

Matchmaker, matchmaker…

Good Fit:

Poor Fit:

  • Data collection projects�– But: see integrations (CitSci, iNat)
  • Highly custom interfaces or tools
  • Sensitive Data�– Public Platform API
  • Large-scale Restricted Participation�– But: private projects possible on small lab/group scale
  • Large Datasets
  • Need assistance with volunteer recruitment
  • Eager to use proven tools
  • Limited development budget
  • Hybrid Human+AI/ML Efforts
  • NASA Research�– NASA-Zooniverse Partnership

42 of 85

NASA-Zooniverse Partnership

12 active projects, 19 total projects during 3+ year partnership

Key NASA Grant Program:

Citizen Science Seed Funding Program (CSSFP)

10 awardees using Zooniverse Platform out of 24 total awards

Next Submission Deadline: 24 Jan 2024 (ROSES-2023)

43 of 85

Jessica Bean

FieldScope

44 of 85

FieldScope is a…

  • Map-based data collection and analysis platform

  • Partner for creating educational resources and programs

FieldScope empowers…

  • Organizations, community members, and learners to engage with data about environmental and social challenges
  • Participants to use maps, graphs, and other visualization tools to make meaning of datasets and turn data into stories

How does FieldScope serve community and citizen science?

45 of 85

fieldscope.org

46 of 85

FieldScope Projects by Geographic Size

International/ National

Statewide/ Regional

Local

FrogWatch USA

Akron Zoo (formerly AZA)

species monitoring

Budburst

Chicago Botanic Gardens

plant phenology monitoring

Journey North

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Species Migration Monitoring

Soil Testing USA

Citizens Science Community Resources (CSRC)

soil monitoring

Globe at Night

NSF Noir Lab

astronomical observation monitoring

Indigenous Mapping Community

Multiple Organizations

multiple environmental and cultural monitoring

WaterInsights

Water Insights Program

water quality monitoring

RiverWatch of Colorado

River Science and Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW)

water quality monitoring

Sharks of California

Ocean Sanctuaries

species monitoring

Stream Discovery

National Great Rivers Research and Education Center

water quality monitoring

Chesapeake Watershed Project

Multiple Organizations

water quality monitoring

#WeAreCoastal

Oceans Learning Partnership

water quality and trash monitoring

Clark County Student

Watershed Monitoring Network

City of Vancouver, Washington

water quality monitoring

The Indigenous

Observation Network

Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Council

water quality monitoring

Citizens Restoring American Chestnuts

The Appalachian Laboratory and the American Chestnut Foundation

plant phenology monitoring

Inland Seas

water quality monitoring

Great Smoky Mountains Nat’l Park

National Park Service

Species & Environmental Monitoring

Tree Free Potomac Watershed Initiative

Alice Ferguson Foundation

trash monitoring

Loko Ea Foundation

Coastal Fish Pond Monitoring

species monitoring

Bat Activity Trends

Woodland Park Zoo, WA

Bat monitoring

Our Forests

Sierra Streams Institute

forest monitoring

Over 24,000 participants!

47 of 85

48 of 85

49 of 85

50 of 85

51 of 85

52 of 85

53 of 85

54 of 85

FieldScope is a platform used by citizen and community science programs to activate participants to collect, visualize, analyze and share their data. Projects hosted on FieldScope get access to these tools and more:

  • Shared Project Database: A mobile-friendly platform for you to upload past data from spreadsheets and to invite your participants to add new data as they collect it, including when in the field and offline.
  • Visualization and analysis: Your project’s data comes to life in a new way through our maps and graphs that you and your project participants can explore, analyze and organize into shareable data dashboards.
  • Tools for Project Managers: Management tools for you to keep track of your participants and their contributions, manage and download project data, and more.
  • Tools for Groups: Do you have groups working within a project? FieldScope has the ability to have groups within a project for distributed project management across groups or chapters.

Shared Project Database

Tools for Project Managers

Management tools you can use to keep track of your participants and their contributions, manage and download project data, and more.

Tools for Groups

Does you have groups working within your project? FieldScope has the ability to have groups within a project for distributed project management across groups or chapters.

A mobile-friendly platform where you can upload past data from spreadsheets and invite your participants to add new data as they collect it, including when in the field and offline.

Visualization and Analysis

Your project’s data comes to life in a new way through our maps and graphs that you and your project participants can explore, analyze and organize into shareable data dashboards.

New offline mode!

Supports photos, audio, & video!

Embed visualizations in other websites!

55 of 85

Invitations to Inquiry

Project Goals

Provide large numbers of teachers and students with a first experience of conducting inquiry with authentic environmental data.

Rationale

  • Support teachers with resources to teach NGSS and don’t have a lot of time.
  • Provide a structured inquiry experience that can be a ‘stepping stone’ to lead teachers toward providing students with open-ended data inquiry experiences.

https://bscs.org/resources/invitations-to-inquiry

56 of 85

Launching a FieldScope Project

57 of 85

Thank you!

Jessica Bean: jrbean@berkeley.edu

This project has been funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant GBMF9768.02 to UC Berkeley & Grant GBMF5241.01 to BSCS Science Learning.

58 of 85

Carrie Seltzer

iNaturalist

59 of 85

A platform for sharing biodiversity encounters

60 of 85

Good fit:

Poor fit:

  • Presence-only biodiversity records
  • Leverage existing data, infrastructure, community, & expertise
  • Willing to get involved & learn iNat yourself
  • Intrinsically-motivated audience
  • Checklists
  • More complex data fields required
  • Don’t want to learn a new platform yourself
  • Anonymous participation
  • Coerced audience (i.e. students)
  • Kids under 13

61 of 85

62 of 85

“Collection”

Good for place & taxon based projects

Automatically collects observations

63 of 85

“Traditional”

Good if filters won’t work

Can have additional required “observation fields” (e.g. host plant)

64 of 85

A well-established platform

  • Weekly sharing with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility
  • 4000+ publications using iNaturalist data
  • AI and geospatial modeling on the 70,000 most commonly recorded species
  • Hundreds of new, undescribed, or rediscovered species

2.8M+ people worldwide

since 2008

65 of 85

This hour we expect:

  • 9,207 new observations

  • 19,588 new identifications

  • 222 new users

  • 4 new projects

66 of 85

Holli Kohl

The GLOBE Program & GLOBE Observer

https://www.globe.gov/ https://observer.globe.gov/

67 of 85

Is The GLOBE Program a platform?

GLOBE is an international science and education program managed internationally through bilateral agreements between the US government and those of 127 participating countries.

GLOBE Observer is the app of The GLOBE Program.

68 of 85

Maybe not, but…

If you want to collect environmental data, there’s a good chance GLOBE is doing it already. Can you work with a GLOBE protocol?

Atmosphere: aerosols, air temperature, barometric pressure, clouds, precipitation, relative humidity, surface ozone, surface temperature, water vapor, wind, weather station

Biosphere: Arctic bird migration, biometry, tree height, carbon cycle, fire fuel, green down, green up, land cover classification, lilac phenology, phenological gardens, ruby-throated hummingbirds, seaweed reproductive phenology

Hydrosphere: alkalinity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, freshwater macroinvertebrates, mosquitoes, nitrates, pH, salinity and titration, water temperature, water transparency

Pedosphere: bulk density, frost tube, soil characterization, soil fertility, soil infiltration, soil moisture (3 protocols), soil particle density, soil particle size distribution, soil pH, soil temperature

Earth as a System: agriculture bundle, air quality bundle, ENSO bundle, mosquito bundle, ocean bundle, river & lakes bundle, soils bundle, urban bundle, water cycle bundle, water quality bundle, weather bundle

69 of 85

Why use GLOBE for your project?

  • GLOBE has nearly 50 pre-defined protocols and more combinations of protocols that include training and support material
  • Free and open database that you don’t have to manage
  • More than 241,000,000 measurements in the database already going back to 1995
  • App for data collection and data entry
  • Existing volunteer base, including 40,000+ schools and 261,000+ individual volunteers in 127 countries
  • Registration, user management, permissions, privacy, etc. are all managed for you

70 of 85

Tools for Building on GLOBE

GLOBE Teams allows you to organize a group for collective action. You can see who is in the group and access all of your group’s data from your team page. Anyone can create a team.

71 of 85

Tools for building on GLOBE

New science/community data request function in pilot in the United States for 4 app-based protocols (clouds, mosquito habitats, land cover, and trees). This allows you to request observations in a region you specific.

72 of 85

73 of 85

74 of 85

www.citizenscience.org/platforms

75 of 85

There are other platforms!

76 of 85

citizen science month

77 of 85

Questions to answer when shopping for platforms

What’s the main task I’m asking people to do?

What’s my ultimate goal? What’s my close second goal? What features do I need to achieve these?

What design support do I need?

What recruiting support will I need? Is my project open to anyone or for a discrete group?

What interaction do I want to have with participants? What interaction do I want to participants to have with each other?

What training do I need to provide?

How much of the scientific process do I want to involve participants in?

What are my specific data needs? Rigor, privacy of sensitive information, legal accountability

What are my specific data privacy needs? Protected data, protected species, private land?

Do I have funding for ongoing platform maintenance?

78 of 85

Discussion

79 of 85

Parting notes

80 of 85

4th Thursday NASA Citizen Science Office Hours

with Marc Kuchner, Sarah Kirn, and special guests!

81 of 85

82 of 85

NASA GLOBE Funding Opportunity

  • NASA Earth Science Division seeks proposals to host the GLOBE Implementation Office!
  • Address one, two or three elements of GLOBE: community engagement and support; science; training, education, and public engagement.
  • For more info: NASA ROSES-2023 A.40 NSPIRES page; solicitation; Q&A document (will continue to be updated); Aug. 10, 2023 informational event recording and slides.
  • Interested in reviewing GIO proposals for NASA? Fill out the form here!
  • Contact Amy P. Chen, GLOBE Program Manager, amy.p.chen@nasa.gov

Submission Deadlines:

Step-1 Proposal: October 6, 2023 (REQUIRED; only 1-3 pages)

(Step-2 Proposal: December 20, 2023

83 of 85

Interested in an “in real life” conversation at AGU?

84 of 85

Reflect - and help us better serve you!

menti.com code: 7889 1101

85 of 85

See you next at:

NASA Cit Sci Project Clinics:

bring your challenge, solve it with colleagues and mentors.

Dates in October

Association for Advancement of Participatory Sciences (formerly CSA):

10 Year Member Celebration

(Oct. 5th, 3pm ET)