Here comes the science... but how will we know?

Here comes the science… …but how will we know?

Engage in fair peer review.

State your purpose clearly and honestly.

Acknowledge uncertainty.

Aren’t we ALL scientists now?

http://www.gamesforchange.org/play/rizk/

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/

http://www.opalexplorenature.org/

http://www.ushahidi.com/

Collaboration / peer review

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

http://www.openheatmap.com http://geocommons.com

http://cartodb.com

Tweet mapping with R – shared computation by Miguel Rios http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/

Citizen Science

• It’s hard to run controlled experiments in conservation planning, flood management, infrastructure development…

• To make strategic decisions, we rely on models - to train and validate those models we need data.

• Volunteered data can be timely and plentiful

…………….But is it any good?

The state of automated amateur weather observations (2013) Bell, S., Cornford, D. & Bastin, L. Weather. 68, 2, p. 36-41.

Gappy data

http://code.flickr.net/2008/10/30/the-shape-of-alpha/

http://www.flickr.com/map/

Clustr + Flickr

Image © Simon Bell

Image © Simon Bell

Fitness-for-purpose

The state of automated amateur weather observations (2013) Bell, S., Cornford, D. & Bastin, L. Weather. 68, 2, p. 36-41.

Peer-reviewing data and models

GeoViQua http://geoviqua.org

Forbes, 25/4/2013

Obstacles to Open Data and Models

• It’s my livelihood

• It’s confidential

• What if it was misused by a blunderer?

‘Only 12% of diabetes sufferers in South Birmingham have been recorded by GPs’

How much harm could a blunderer do?

‘Only 12% of diabetes sufferers in South Birmingham have been recorded by GPs’

17,428 diabetic patients registered with GPs 126,322 diabetic patients not registered ...nearly 50% of the local population.

Q1. Does it fit with independent evidence?

Q2. What data am I actually looking at?

Q3. What are the spatial units?

‘Spline interpolation was used to estimate values at intermediate locations’

Q4: Why (not just how) was a technique used?

Q5. Where’s the uncertainty?

x 5,000

Why not automate everything?

Copied from Casino Royale (Columbia Pictures, 1967)

foldit http://fold.it/portal/

Old Weather (a Zooniverse project) http://www.oldweather.org/

British Library – Old Maps Online http://www.bl.uk/maps/index.html

Fritz et al., Remote Sens. 2009, 1, 345-354; doi:10.3390/rs1030345 http://www.geo-wiki.org/