How do “Citizen Scientists” stack up against the experts?

Anybody can impart to the advance of scientific discipline ! There are plenty of “ Citizen Scientist ” projects that get you help with scientific research . But one question lingers : How reliable are the results produced by non - experts ? A new subject leave some good intelligence .

The novel research , which was release last calendar month in theopen - access journal PLOS ONE , centre specifically on theGeo - Wiki Project . The goal of the labor is to improve the lineament of globose land covering maps , allege study lead author Linda See , a geographer with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria .

There are several global land top map that scientists often use in their inquiry , includingGLC-2000,MODISandGlobCover . However , these maps frequently differ . “ When I overlay the map , one of the maps may tell me that there should be cropland here , while another function says it should be grassland , ” See order io9 .

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Improving Participation With Competitions

To help compensate the disagreement , the Geo - Wiki Projectenlists citizen scientiststo take apart those breaker point of disagreements — using a Google Earth port on the internet site — and determine the land encompass that are really at those patch . Of course , getting people involved in citizen science projects is n’t always wanton , so the Geo - Wiki overlords set out running themed competitor , in which people could win Amazon voucher and conscientious objector - writing on scientific papers resulting from the contention .

https://gizmodo.com/we-want-you-to-become-a-scientist-513155523

One of the competitions focused on the overall land available for biofuel crops , See said . Previous estimate had said that there are between 320 million and 1411 million hectares uncommitted for bioenergy production . But when See ’s colleague , Steffen Fritz , looked at some of the maps used to hail up with the estimates , he immediately knew something was wrong . “ He expect at the function and was incensed , ” See said . “ He think , ‘ This is crazy , there ’s not that much land available . ' ”

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So the research worker make a rivalry around this result — they took sample distribution from the biofuel maps and instructed their Geo - Wiki volunteers to determine the eccentric of landed estate cover and the academic degree of human impact in each 1 km by 1 kilometer Google Earth pixel . “ The idea was that if the land is already being used and you’re able to distinctly see this , then it ca n’t be used for biofuels , ” See explained , impart that certain solid ground covert are n’t right for biofuel production either .

For about 2 months , the team had more than 60 participants analyse some 53,000 locations . Around half of the participants were regard “ experts ” based on their background in remote sensing or spacial sciences . For each location , the volunteers had to identify the type of land covers in the image , including tree cover , bush cover , grassland , wetland and barren ( desert ) , among others . They also had to watch the degree of human encroachment ( in percentages ) by looking for sign of such things as roads , disforestation and agrarian fields . Finally , the volunteers point how confident they were with their psychoanalysis for each point .

See , Fritz and another confrere got together to discuss and come to an agreement on around 299 control point . They determine how well the expert and non - experts did in the overall contest by compare the volunteers ’ answers on the control point with their own . They choose victor based on both the quality and amount of the analyzed locating .

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Experts Vs. Non-experts

Looking at the control - point data , the research worker found that the experts and non - expert were as able to determine the story of human encroachment in the image . However , experts did better than non - experts at key land cover version , though not by much — they were right 69 pct and 62 percent of the fourth dimension , respectively .

Some land cover charge are just difficult to identify , See said . Sometimes grasslands attend like barren acres , for example . And then there are issues with definitions . “ When does a shrub become a tree ? ” she say . Some of these commonality errors , however , can be consistently corrected for .

The result from the contest were stupefying : The researchers used the citizen scientists ’ contributions todowngrade the amount of land useable for biofuel crops by almost 80 percent .

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Geo - Wiki Project leaders are now in the process of update the system to help improve the accuracy of itscitizen scientist . For one thing , future contender will have exam points that pop up every now and then — if you get it wrong , it will explain why . software engineer are also figuring out how to implement societal interactions into the competitions , which will allow users to discuss the image and learn from each other .

https://gizmodo.com/citizen-science-project-identifies-species-by-their-cal-791823189

“ The primary gunpoint correctly now is that we can use the data provided by citizen scientists , ” See said . “ They can be just as authentic as experts . ”

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