UNREALIZED POTENTIAL OF CITIZEN SCIENCE IN EUROPE: OPPORTUNITIES IN

LIFE SCIENCE RESEARCH

EGLĖ MARIJA RAMANAUSKAITĖ, MScVilnius University, Citizen Cyberlab, Human Computation Institute

VITA SCIENTIA 2016, VILNIUS

CITIZEN SCIENCE – real scientific research done by or together with non-scientists

• Popular in the English-speaking world, esp. US

• Europe catching up …

• Mostly biodiversity, but others popping up

CITIZEN SCIENTISTS:

× ARE NOT cheap labor!

Enjoy learning about science

Appreciate a fun way to spend time

See the Big Picture & want to contribute to science!

HOW: • volunteer

computing

Rosetta@home

• volunteer thinking

Cell Slider (Cancer Research UK)

• volunteer gaming

EyeWire

FoldIt

Phylo

• volunteer sensing

WHY DOES CITIZEN SCIENCE MATTER?

Q1. Can you… be in a lot of places at once?

CITIZEN SCIENTISTS can

Charlop-Powers, Z. et al. (2015). Global biogeographic sampling of bacterial secondary metabolism. eLife, 4, e05048.

Q2. Can you… trick time to squeeze in ALL THAT DATA??

Q3. Or have a free-to-use supercomputer right in your lab???

CITIZEN SCIENTISTS will help you (if you ask kindly)

IS CITIZEN SCIENCE RELIABLE?

YES: • 1 trained researcher = 23 citizen scientists• Thousands of volunteers do this• Usually one task / puzzle / experiment is given to

several citizen scientists

CITIZEN SCIENTISTS: Have skills unmatched by any computer Have “microexpertise” that makes a powerful team Are quick to learn

Think outside the box!! Not noise… whole new type of galaxy!

CITIZEN SCIENTISTS CAN: Achieve breakthroughs Publish papers

Help solve the world’s most pressing problems, like climate change, Alzheimer’s, cancer…

Follett R, Strezov V (2015) An Analysis of Citizen Science Based Research: Usage and Publication Patterns. PLoS ONE 10(11): e0143687.

SETTING UP A CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

SO… IN A *RARE* EVENT THAT YOU CANNOT BEND THE RULES OF SPACE AND TIME…

DON’T DO THIS:

…

SO… IN A *RARE* EVENT THAT YOU CANNOT BEND THE RULES OF SPACE AND TIME…

DO THIS:

THANKS !!!

Special thanks to:Pietro Michelucci, Human Computation institute; Francois Grey, Citizen Cyberlab team, and all of the Citizen Cyberlab project collaborators at UNIGE, CERN, UNITAR, UPD, UCL, Imperial College London and The Mobile Collective.

AND ALL THE CITIZEN SCIENTISTS OUT THERE!