Thread to discuss "Ideas for Citizen Science in Astronomy" (Marshall+ 2014)
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JeanTate
Thanks to zutopian for posting about this (here):
Ideas for Citizen Science in Astronomy
Philip J. Marshall, Chris J. Lintott, Leigh N. Fletcher
(Submitted on 15 Sep 2014)
Comments: In progress. The most up to date PDF file should be downloaded from this http URL .
We invite feedback via github issues at this http URL, and aim to submit to ARAA on September 26
http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.4291The feedback URL is https://github.com/drphilmarshall/Ideas-for-Citizen-Science-in-Astronomy/issues
Here's the abstract:
We review the relatively new, internet-enabled, and rapidly-evolving field of citizen science, focusing on research projects in stellar, extragalactic and solar system astronomy that have benefited from the participation of members of the public, often in large numbers. We find these volunteers making contributions to astronomy in a variety of ways: making and analyzing new observations, visually classifying features in images and light curves, exploring models constrained by astronomical datasets, and initiating new scientific enquiries. The most productive citizen astronomy projects involve close collaboration between the professionals and amateurs involved, and occupy scientific niches not easily filled by great observatories or machine learning methods: citizen astronomers are most strongly motivated by being of service to science. In the coming years we expect participation and productivity in citizen astronomy to increase, as survey datasets get larger and citizen science platforms become more efficient. Opportunities include engaging the public in ever more advanced analyses, and facilitating citizen-led enquiry by designing professional user interfaces and analysis tools with citizens in mind.
No surprise that GZ features prominently, as does GZ forum mediated serendipitous discoveries! 😄
However, as zutopian notes, there are some, um, oddities; for example, Letters is not mentioned in the body, but one of the references is a Letter! Also, the section on Quench is full of errors (yes, I plan on giving feedback).
Have any other GZ Talk regulars read it? What do you think?
Let the discussion begin! 😃
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JeanTate
in response to JeanTate's comment.
Also, the section on Quench is full of errors (yes, I plan on giving feedback).
I've started a thread in Quench Talk on this: "Ideas for Citizen Science in Astronomy" (Marshall+ 2014) - section on Quench in need of serious editing?. And mlpeck has already posted some comment, here {link later} in GZ Talk:
I'd say the "information" about Quench isn't especially accurate. At the time it went on hiatus there were 3 active "citizen scientist" participants by my count. There might have been as many as 10 involved early in the analysis phase but most of them faded away over time. As far as I know there were never thousands participating in Quench Talk, not even during the classification stage. And also as far as I know there is no scientific paper underway yet. There was a paper presented by Trouille at an AAS meeting in Chicago this August, but that was about the project more than it was results from the project and (again, AFAIK) no citizen scientist directly participated in its preparation.
Finally, we had largely abandoned "Tools" (referred to as "dashboard" in Marshall+) as a data sharing and analysis tool well before the project went on hiatus. Even the last data updates from the science team were shared via a dropbox account.
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JeanTate
I've begun reading the feedback (in github); apparently Phil Marshall started this paper on ~5 April 2014. There seems to have been a WP blog set up, as a collaborative writing tool? I haven't yet found the URL of this blog ...
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JeanTate
Have now read the preprint right through*, here are some random observations:
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Dr Phil released this to arxiv "12 hours ago": Closed Issue #93, "Prepare abstract PDF and submit it to arxiv"
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"Our aim in this work is to review the astronomical (and occasionally wider)
literature for productive citizen science projects" (p4): the rather large number of "in prep." papers cited (can you 'cite' a paper that is "in prep"?) suggests that the authors did much more than just review the published literature! -
"Both groups of citizen scientists are clearly quite serious in their reasons for taking part: their motivations are actually very close to those of professional scientists, as many readers of this review will recognize." (p44) The title of this section of GZ Talk - Science Powered by Citizens - is itself a testament to that
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"The experience documented above invites us to consider the possibility of teams of citizens performing analyses that currently require a significant amount of research student time. Checking survey images and catalogs for processing failures and fitting non-linear models to data are just two possibilities." (p52) Indeed. And that's just what happened in the Quench project! ... the ordinary zooites who took part in Stage 2 discovered quite a few flaws and shortcomings in the data and methods ... (I'll be making a suggestion/giving feedback, on the Quench subsection/case study, to tie in to just this point)
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"Just as research students adapt and develop the tools they are first presented with, the Kaggle and Foldit experiences point strongly towards a model where citizens are also enabled to evolve their tools." And in the Kaggle Galaxy Zoo - The Galaxy Challenge, the eventual winner very early discovered, um, flaws in the GZ data; flaws which none of the GZ Science Team had spotted
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"The citizen astronomers are passionate about the subject, and are encouragingly motivated by being of service to science. We must recognize that a critical feature of "citizen science" is the enabling of amateurs to make authentic contributions to the research topic in question: this in turn should drive us to seek out those tasks that cannot be done by other means." Hear, hear! 😃 I guess this is one factor that led to the creation of Letters ...
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Green Peas is featured, as you'd expect, in section 5 ("CITIZEN-LED ENQUIRY"), subsection "The Galaxy Zoo Forum."; what is not discussed is why the GP initiative fizzled out, why (for example) the follow-on Irregulars Project died
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"The project acted as an "engine of motivation" in inspiring its participants to become more involved." (same subsection, p39): the corollary - the absence of any such "Green Pea"-like projects in GZ Talk - is not discussed
Anyone else has read it? Would you care to share?
*and found quite a few typos; no one would believe I'd read it carefully if I didn't find typos, right? 😉
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zutopian
5 CITIZEN-LED ENQUIRY (page 37 ff.)
(...) What are some enquiries that citizens have led in astronomy to date, and how have they been enabled and supported?
(...)
The Galaxy Zoo Forum.
The ability of the Zoo volunteers to carry out their own research, moving far beyond the mere "clockwork" required by the main interface, is best illustrated by the discovery of the Galaxy Zoo Green Peas (Cardamone et al. 2009). (...)
I think, that the Irregular Project should be also mentioned! I know, that there has however no paper been published, but this project should be nonetheless also mentioned! I think, that the Irregular Project is actually a better example than the discovery of the Green Peas. According to the wikipedia article about the Green Peas the "Give Peas a Chance" forum topic had been started as a joke, but the Irregular Project had been started as a serious project.
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Capella05
moderator
I think, that the Irregular Project should be also mentioned! I know, that there has however no paper been published, but this project should be nonetheless also mentioned! I think, that the Irregular Project is actually a better example than the discovery of the Green Peas. According to the wikipedia article about the Green Peas the "Give Peas a Chance" forum topic had been started as a joke, but the Irregular Project had been started as a serious project.
Waveney (not GZ) started the Irregular Project and was / is planning to use it as the basis for his PHD thesis. It would not be fair to him if it was mentioned.
As for the typo's etc... this paper is a work in progress and should be read as such 😃
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JeanTate
in response to zutopian's comment.
If you read the Closed Issues, in github, you'll see there's at least one on "What are some enquiries that citizens have led in astronomy to date, and how have they been enabled and supported?" My recollection is that what the authors are/were looking for is results already published*; as far as I know, waveney did not publish anything (on/from the Irregulars Project).
*there's mild irony in the frequent use of "in prep." papers throughout!
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JeanTate
in response to Capella05's comment.
As for the typo's etc... this paper is a work in progress and should be read as such 😃
Yes, of course; that's probably one reason why they (the authors) explicitly asked for feedback! Are you considering providing some, Capella05?
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Capella05
moderator
Perhaps I already have 😉
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JeanTate
in response to Capella05's comment.
Actually, in my mental image of you, Capella05, it would be out of character for you to have NOT provided feedback! 😄
However, what I meant was, via the github link/mechanism explicitly mentioned, https://github.com/drphilmarshall/Ideas-for-Citizen-Science-in-Astronomy/issues
That's where I'm planning on providing my feedback, once I've registered, and worked out how "Issues" work ...
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Capella05
moderator
I do have a GitHub account, as we used it quite extensively on the SL paper. Sometimes email is just simpler 😃
Dr Phil is aware of this thread, so I am sure he will reply at some point.
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JeanTate
in response to Capella05's comment.
Cool! 😄 Thanks for doing that; big welcome to Dr Phil! 😃
I've created a GitHub account, and posted (created?) my first Issue, as feedback; it will be very interesting to be involved in this process ...
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mlpeck
in response to JeanTate's comment.
Have any other GZ Talk regulars read it?
I've read it fairly closely except for skimming a few sections describing non-GZ "citizen science" projects.
As far as Quench goes they seem to be describing the project as it was envisioned a year+ ago rather than as it stands right now. It could still work out more or less as envisioned I suppose, but it's going to require some leadership from the PI and engagement from other scientists to get back on track.
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zutopian
Here is a related paper, which isn't listed in the Reference list of the paper by Marshall et al..:
Scientific collaborations in astronomy between amateurs and professionals
As our successful Mons campaign to observe WR140 has shown, there is a strong interest among both amateur and professional astronomers to collaborate on specific scientific questions. I highlight here some recent examples of successful collaborations, and outline a number of areas of astronomy where Pro-Am collaborations are making a difference.
Johan H. Knapen
(Submitted on 4 Jan 2011)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.0684There is a section about Galaxy Zoo.
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JeanTate
"We thank David W. Hogg, Arfon Smith, Laura Whyte, ... for many useful discussions about the practice of citizen science in astronomy."
That's the second sentence in the Acknowledgements section. Arfon we all know, from his many years as GZ then Zooniverse technical lead. And Laura is head of Zooniverse Education (or whatever its formal title is). But David W. Hogg? How many of you know about his involvement with, or interest in, the practice of citizen science in astronomy?
This page on his website explains:
citizen science: With the success of the Astrometry.net system that calibrates, tags, and makes scientifically useful imaging of unknown provenance, Hogg's group has brought tens of thousands of images from thousands of amateur astronomers across the globe into the scientific domain. This opens up new, extremely rich channels for scientific participation by the public, especially in large projects where collaboration is the key to success. Hogg's group is currently exploring the astronomical information and discovery space in web-exposed amateur data, and working towards starting coordinated activity or some kind of Open-Source Sky Survey.
Astrometry.net, and papers by Hogg+, feature prominently in Section 2.2 of the preprint, Passive Observing
Just as interesting is his involvement in open science*:
open science: Hogg's research group endeavors to make all of its algorithms, code, and data available publicly for inspection and use by members of the public and by other scientists. Much of the code is available on the web for inspection even during development. This level of openness is extremely rare, but in fact Hogg's group has found that the “random” scientific interactions produced by exposure on the web contribute positively to the program in unanticipated ways. Hogg also reports daily on details of his research activity in an online research diary.
*we GZ zooites perhaps know about what's going on in open science from the forum thread Alice stated, We're in a book! "Reinventing Discovery" by Michael Nielsen. Or perhaps zkChris' blog post (Many) Zooniverse Papers Now Open Access (open access is a major theme in open science).
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JeanTate
in response to zutopian's comment.
Thanks for finding this, zutopian! 😃
I added an Issue, as feedback (in the GitHub site), suggesting that it be added as a reference.
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JeanTate
Copied from the Recent Galaxy Zoo related submissions to arXiv (and elsewhere) thread, a post by mlpeck ("Posted October 4 2014 1:47 PM"):
For anyone not following along on github, the submitted version of Marshall, Lintott & Fletcher 2015: "Ideas for Citizen Science in Astronomy" was posted earlier this week. I haven't done a detailed comparison with version 1, but the authors clearly responded to feedback left on the "issues" section of github and the end result looks like a considerable improvement to me. I still have quibbles with the discussion of the one project where I have a fair amount of first hand knowledge, but I'll save that for elsewhere.
Anyway, it's well worth reading and not at all technical.
GZ Talk thread [this thread]. And there's a bit of discussion on Quench Talk here.
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zutopian
Info: Previous posts in this discussions are dated Sept-Oct 2014!
The below comment had been done by Jean in Sept 2014 in a discussion about the "Future/status of Letters, and other Zooniverse support for zooites' independent research?" (1st post on Page 5)!
It would seem that something like Letters is exactly what the Zooniverse team would be enthusiastic about developing, supporting, and promoting! As evidenced by: (...)
As evidence there are listed three statements from the paper "Ideas for Citizen Science in Astronomy" !
In reply I had posted following evidence/ statement, which I found in the paper.:
Citizen scientists are largely free of these managerial and budgetary constraints, and are able to devote their attentions to whatever topics interest them.
http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BGZ0000007/discussions/DGZ0000won
Moderator Capella05 did following statement concerning Letters in a different discussion 19 days ago .:
Rick, there was no funding / grants available to continue developing it. (...)
http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BGZ0000007/discussions/DGZ0001u6f
I guess, that the funding rejection was known to Marshall et al., before the paper was submitted/published, wasn't it?
If so: I wonder, why they hadn't mentioned the Letters project and the funding rejection in the paper?
Letters was a good idea in my opinion, but if there is no funding available, one can't realize an idea! I think, that there should have been such a statement in the paper!
Citizen scientists could actually write papers without using Letters, but how should they publish their work in a journal without the help by professional scientists? Besides there are publication fees, as far as I know!
This problem had been also discussed in the discussion about Letters.EDIT:
GZ Quench is mentioned in the paper, but there is still no paper available, as far as I know! Does anyone know the reason?
Well, In the Conclusions section of the paper there is given following statement.:
While not everyone who takes part in a project wants to move to more advanced work, providing the opportunity to do so is important.
I had mentioned the above statement also in the discussion about Letters before!
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JeanTate
in response to zutopian's comment.
Citizen scientists could actually write papers without using Letters, but how should they publish their work in a journal without the help by professional scientists?
It's possible, in theory, but unless a would-be citizen scientist has a PhD (in any field), or a close relative or friend who has experience with publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, it would be extraordinarily difficult. And, over in RGZ, at least one Science Team member has actively discouraged this (I'm going by memory, so I could be wrong). Cost is, IMHO, a minor barrier.
GZ Quench was mentioned in the paper, but there is still no paper available, as far as I know!
I think you're right: at the end of the project, there were ~a half dozen zooites still keen to at least start the process of writing a paper, but the PI was no longer around (for whatever reason). And no astronomer stepped in to take over.
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zutopian
in response to JeanTate's comment.
Cost is, IMHO, a minor barrier.
Well, besides publication fees, one must pay fees to get access to papers (and/or data), which were published in journals, as you know.
One must read papers on a research subject before/ while writing a paper, but probably most of published papers aren't available for free,.as you know.PS: The published version of the paper by Marshall et al. isn't available for free!
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-astro-081913-035959PPS: Zooniverse blog post "(Many) Zooniverse Papers Now Open Access" , 2nd Aug 2013:
http://blog.zooniverse.org/2013/08/02/many-zooniverse-papers-now-open-access/Posted
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JeanTate
in response to zutopian's comment.
Well, besides publication fees, one must pay fees to get access to papers, which were published in journals, as you know.
One must read papers on a research subject before/ while writing a paper, but many/most? published papers aren't available for free,.as you know.That's certainly true. And it is grossly unethical ... after all, some overwhelmingly large fraction of the research reported in papers published in peer-reviewed journals depends (almost entirely) on taxpayer funds, yet taxpayers have to PAY to read them! 😮
However, there are ways to get copies, or near copies, for free. There's arXiv ('pre-print server') for example. And Aaron Swartz (WP) left a legacy which includes a very low likelihood of criminal prosecutions for 'copyright violations', at least by citizen scientists.
PS: The published version of the paper by Marshall et al. isn't available for free!
Yes, deeply ironic, isn't it? The vast majority of the people whose work Marshall+ write up cannot read that paper for free. I wonder how Phil himself feels about that?
However, a copy is available in either arXiv or GitHub (perhaps both), you just have to know how to find it (which is itself also rather ironic, no?)
ETA: the full text of the published paper is (now) available for free
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zutopian
in response to JeanTate's comment.
It's possible, in theory, but unless a would-be citizen scientist has a PhD (in any field), or a close relative or friend who has experience with publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, it would be extraordinarily difficult. And, over in RGZ, at least one Science Team member has actively discouraged this (I'm going by memory, so I could be wrong). Cost is, IMHO, a minor barrier.
Here is a useful news article, which was published yesterday on the website of the journal nature.:
The manuscript-editing marketplace
A peer-to-peer website aims to disrupt the author-services industry.
http://www.nature.com/news/the-manuscript-editing-marketplace-1.19457PS: I mentioned the article also in the discussion about Letters today.
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