This page will describe and link to projects using the power of the crowd and the cloud to automate research tasks.
eBird is a phone and web app allowing birders to track their observations & sightings; maintained by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, eBird provides rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales.
iNaturalist.org is a mobile app platform encouraging users to capture and share nature observations.
Zooniverse
The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers—hundreds of thousands of people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Our goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, datasets useful to the wider research community, and many publications.
Classify satellite images of galaxies by shape in Galaxy Zoo.
Witness the United States Civil War by transcribing and deciphering messages and codes from the United States Military Telegraph.
Transcribe handwritten documents by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and help us understand his life and times.
In the Victorian period, just like today, scientists and members of the public worked together to further scientific discovery. Before computers and cameras they had to draw what they saw. Their drawings are locked away in the pages of Victorian periodicals, such as Science Gossip, Recreative Science and The Intellectual Observer. Help us to classify their drawings and map the origins of citizen science.
