The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Citizen Scientist: Helping Scientists Help Themselves
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100920101157.htm
ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2010) — We are all scientists now, thanks to
SETI@home, Galaxy Zoo, The Great Sunflower Project, Folding@home and
counltess other projects that allow individuals to take part in
scientific research directly or indirectly. In the case of SETI@home
and Folding@home one shares one's computer CPU with the researchers,
whereas Galaxy Zoo is more about active involvement with the
classification of stellar objects in images of the night sky, for
instance.
Now, writing in the International Journal of Organisational Design and
Engineering, US researchers have mapped out an approach to virtual
organizations that might allow scientific advances made in part by
citizen scientists to move forward much more quickly.
"Citizen science is a form of organisation design for collaborative
scientific research involving scientists and volunteers, for which
internet-based modes of participation enable massive virtual
collaboration by thousands of members of the public," explains Andrea
Wiggins of Syracuse University, New York, who works in the research
group of Kevin Crowston. Earlier work on virtual organizations, the
team points out has focused on distributed collaboration among
scientists and related professionals. However, the rapidly increasing
power of personal computers, the connectivity afforded by the internet
and social media, as well as an apparent growing interest in
scientific discovery means there is much greater access to scientific
discovery for non-scientists than ever before.
The team explains that, "Citizen science projects conducted via web
technologies can yield massive virtual collaborations based on
voluntary contributions by diverse participants. The increasing scale
of citizen science projects, some of which involve hundreds of
thousands of members of the public in distributed data collection and
analysis, suggests a need for additional research. In particular,
designing organisations to support this form of scientific knowledge
production requires understanding the effects of organisation and task
design on the scientific outcomes of citizen science projects."
The team has used an existing theoretical framework borrowed from the
social sciences and normally used for small organizational groups to
build a new model of how best to organize the volunteers in a
distributed, collaborative scientific experiment. The approach has
allowed them to look at how volunteers might register, interact and
reveal the results due to their efforts.
"The theoretical model highlights some key aspects of organizing and
running citizen science projects," explains Wiggins. "This could
assist people creating new projects or designing supporting
technologies for them in better understanding the complex
relationships between the diverse elements that go into generating
good outcomes, both in terms of volunteer experiences and scientific
results." She points out that, "Many project organizers are initially
surprised by the extent and variety of the decisions that go into
setting up a large-scale project to engage the public in science, so
we hope this model provides a starting point to help promote
intentional design and decision-making to better support learning and
discovery."
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by
ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Inderscience
Publishers, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Journal Reference:
1. Andrea Wiggins, Kevin Crowston. Developing a conceptual model of
virtual organisations for citizen science. International Journal of
Organisational Design and Engineering, 2010; 1 (1/2): 148 DOI:
10.1504/IJODE.2010.035191
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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