Designing a Virtual Research Facility to motivate Professional-Citizen Collaboration (Invited)
Abstract
In order to handle the onslaught of data spilling from telescopes on the Earth and on orbit, CosmoQuest has created a virtual research facility that allows the public to collaborate with science teams on projects that would otherwise lack the necessary human resources. This second-generation citizen science site goes beyond asking people to click on images to also engaging them in taking classes, attending virtual seminars, and participating in virtual star parties. These features were introduced to try and expand the diversity of motivations that bring people to the project and to keep them engaged overtime - just as a research center seeks to bring a diversity of people together to work and learn over time. In creating the CosmoQuest Virtual Research Facility, we sought to answer the question, 'What would happen if we provided the public with the same kinds of facilities scientists have, and invite them to be our collaborators?' It had already been observed that the public readily attends public science lectures, open houses at science facilities, and education programs such as star parties. It was hoped that by creating a central facility, we could build a community of people learning and doing science in a productive manner. In order to be successful, we needed to first create the facility, then test if people were coming both to learn and to do science, and finally to verify that people were doing legitimate science. During the past 18 months of operations, we have continued to work through each of these stages, as discussed talk. At this early date, progress is on-going, and much research remains to be done, but all indications show that we are on our way to building a community of people learning and doing science. During 2013, a series of studies looked at the motivations of CosmoQuest users, as well as their forms of site interactions. During this talk, we will review these results, as well as the demographics of our user population.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFMED51D..01G
- Keywords:
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- 0800 EDUCATION