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/