Open Science, Citizen Science - Unleashing the Power of Community Collaboration to Create New Museum Science - #mcn2012sci

Scheduled:

Abstract:

Citizen science describes methodologies and technologies that allow members of the public to contribute actively to gathering, improving and analysing data. Museums, particularly natural history and science museums have started to utilise citizen science techniques to provide a way to increase the speed and volume of information processing that can be undertaken. Datasets published openly and online can be made available for transcription, pattern recognition and visual analysis. The skills of enthusiastic amateurs can be utilised to gather new data for research and to add to existing collections datasets. In this panel the benefits to museum research and collections of citizen science approaches will be presented, along with case studies and discussions of technologies for large scale public data analysis. 

Session Description:

Memory organisations - also known as the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) - publish data about their collections online, providing access to objects and information that might otherwise be inaccessible. However, approaches to open publication of information vary across the sector. Libraries have been publishing catalogue metadata for many years, have robust technological solutions and standards, and view sharing data as accepted practice. Within organisations holding cultural heritage collections, large scale digitisation projects are now providing access to much more cultural data than has ever been opened up before. Linked open data, and specifically the LOD-LAM movement (linked open data in libraries, archives and museums) is gaining proponents, who aim to achieve at least the open data or “OD” part of LOD, even if the ultimate goal of the semantic web still remains out of reach. Organisations that hold scientific collections, or whose aims are to promote the understanding of science, also disseminate data freely and openly. Amongst institutions that hold natural sciences collections, open publication of specimen data has resulted in global aggregation projects, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, development of sophisticated mapping tools for analysing species distribution and change and, more recently, large scale digitisation projects. Amongst science museums, and particularly those with planetariums or undertaking astronomical research, release of massive datasets for analysis has opened new technologies and possibilities for utilising the skills and enthusiasm of members of the public to contribute to scientific research outcomes.

Citizen science has various guises but is not a new idea. Amateur naturalists, astronomers and hobbyists are great proponents of citizen science, by collecting and reporting observational data. Another meaning relates to crowdsourcing data analysis or data correction, for example, transcribing digitised specimen labels, identifying galaxies, or looking for anomalies in large datasets. These activities add value to museum collections, particularly the research collections that are often not on public view.

In this panel session, members of the diverse museum scientific community will come together to discuss projects and approaches where citizen science and technology is used to engage visitors both onsite and offsite. Projects discussed will include large scale digitisation projects of unregistered specimens in museum collections, with websites that allow volunteers to transcribe the associated labels providing new information about the otherwise hidden specimens. Other projects seek to utilise the sheer numbers of ‘the crowd’ to undertake tasks involving pattern recognition or visual identification of features, easily achieved by a person but difficult for a computer. Still others look to interested amateurs to contribute verifiable observations of the natural world in order to gain an insight into species distribution and range.
 
The panel will round out the session by discussing the merits and pitfalls of engaging in citizen science. And what do memory organisations in general stand to engage by embracing this paradigm and the technologies that come along with the approach?