Galaxy Zoo Talk

Graduate Research Survey: Demographics of Zooniverse Space Science Projects

  • citsciresearch by citsciresearch

    I am a master's student conducting research on the demographics, participation habits, and overall science involvement of participants in Zooniverse's various space-related citizen science projects. Citizen science empowers research to process far greater amounts of data than would otherwise be possible. It has the potential to grow and become a more commonly used asset in the space sciences. I hope to explore further applications of citizen science projects, so having information about those who are currently involved in these projects will help to show where and how they can best be used. I have created a survey accessible at the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/15kyqF_wFag9CDn6SZlMnSXexf0ok6H52GMIFMWOO1Vg/viewform It will take no more than 15 minutes. Please share the link with any other Zooniverse volunteers you might know. Your time and responses are greatly appreciated.

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  • Rick_N. by Rick_N.

    Being English, I don't vote in Presidential or mid-term elections. Perhaps you could have mentioned that this is probably for US-based volunteers? I hope your research goes well.

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Quote from DZM Zooniverse Team :

    A note to zooites: We have reached out to Brittany ( @citsciresearch ) to learn a bit more about what she's doing. We'll let you know once we get a few more things established!

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    Thanks! I must have missed this post here on Galaxy Zoo. I didn't see it before. We're still communicating with Brittany. 😃

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  • citsciresearch by citsciresearch

    Thanks all! I'm sorry for not mentioning that I had mostly US volunteers in mind, but I've altered the wording on some of the questions to clarify and I'm happy to have input from anyone anywhere in the world. I'm still looking for more responses. I'll report back with my research conclusions once it's done.

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Hi Brittany,

    Did you get in touch with the Zooniverse people ?

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  • citsciresearch by citsciresearch

    Elisabeth, yes, and they've been very helpful! To elaborate more on the project, I'm particularly interested in determining whether technology use trends would suggest citizen science efforts be expanded to mobile apps in addition to browser games, but I am investigating several aspects of citizen science and how we can use it more frequently and effectively in space sciences. I'm looking into aspects of game design, policy implications of increased citizen science use by NASA, and even trying to find ways we can use projects like this for human spaceflight research. This survey has passed IRB approval at George Washington University. This is an independent study as part of my coursework so publication is a possibility but not definite.

    I'm happy to respond to questions here, at balcom@gwu.edu, or on Twitter at @AstroBalcom.

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Okay, thanks ! And good luck with the survey ! 😄

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  • Capella05 by Capella05 moderator

    That is really interesting - I am a gamer myself and never thought of incorporating citizen science into it. Pity I am not US based!

    Good luck with the survey 😃

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    For the record, we have no objection to anyone who wants to take this survey doing so! 😃

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  • citsciresearch by citsciresearch

    Thank you everyone who responded! The article containing this research has been published and you can read it here.

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  • vrooje by vrooje admin, scientist

    Thanks for sharing this! Note the abstract refers to us as zooniverse.com instead of zooniverse.org which means nobody clicking on those links can access our site...

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