CitSci Association Conference 2017 - Digitising Dinosaurs - Crowdsourcing at the Natural History Museum London
Natural sciences collections around the world comprise more than one billion specimens, representing a vast source of information on the natural world. Natural History Museums and similar institutions hold and care for these collections on behalf of us all - they are an international public resource. Mobilising these data for research, conservation and public use is a formidable task - and one that is ideally suited to citizen science. Using the power of the crowd to extract, transcribe, interpret and/or analyse data from handwritten labels brings the scale of the task within reach within our lifetimes. My talk 'Digitising Dinosaurs' focused on the crowdsourcing of specimen label transcriptions as part of the Digital Collections Programme at the Natural History Museum London. This Crowdsourcing symposium in which my talk was one out of four, brought together international examples of crowdsourcing platforms, and highlights practical tools and advice for setting up and running a crowdsourcing project. We shared innovative ideas for engaging broad global audiences in this endeavour and tips for supporting and nurturing an online community of citizen scientists including the similarities and differences to face-to-face engagement and training. Crowdsourcing by its nature is a big data movement, and we will demonstrate existing tools and new ones under development that can facilitate open data sharing and the onward use of data for education, conservation and ongoing research. Finally, such a task doesn't come without significant challenges and opportunities! We shared our lessons learned, highlight issues we are still facing and invite suggestions and collaborations from the audience to overcome these.
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CitSci Association Conference 2017 - Digitising Dinosaurs - Crowdsourcing at the Natural History Museum London
- 3. 80m specimens …30m insects …7m fossils …5,000 meteorites
- 10. The Digital Collections Programme • 80 million specimens • Collected over 250 years • Representing 50 billion years of life
- 11. • Pioneering digi pilots • DCP Comms & events • Crowdsourcing • Programme & project mgt. • Seeking external funding • Digital policies & culture • Data portal run & improve • Collections Management System run & improve • Data architecture inc. Join the Dots analysis
- 12. DCP main mass digitisation Grey areas… Many research projects Depth Reach
- 16. Slide digitisation ~ 1,000 per day
- 22. Image capture for labels on pins
- 23. Madagascan Lepidoptera types pilot
- 24. DCP highlights 2016-17 >1bn Portal records downloaded, in >6,000 events >3.5m specimen records on portal* >3,000 Fossil explorer app downloads c.99,000 External portal users *Approx 0.5m added during 2016-17 >1,100 Twitter followers, up from c.250 >3,500 Reads of 12 blog posts 42 Digital Visiteers & 1500 waiting >30 Events & tours inside and outside NHM >26,500 Slides digitised, @ up to 1,000 per day >2,500 Crowdsourced Transcriptions by >600 people >1m Records onto EMu, and de- duplications etc £27,000 External funding & more in discussion
- 25. Miniature Lives Magnified on Notes from Nature In our first tranche of mass slide digitisation, we imaged 100,000 microscope slides of tiny insects, barely visible to the naked eye. Of these, we have selected 6,000 to form our first collection for crowdsourcing – focusing on a group of wasps called chalcids (pronounced 'kal-sids'). These tiny wasps are parasitoids, meaning they lay their eggs inside other insects. When chalcid eggs hatch the emerging larvae eat the inside of their host. They then grow and pupate until mature enough to burst out as adults, finally killing the host. This unique life cycle makes chalcids an important biological control agent, protecting crops and reducing invasive species.
- 26. Miniature Lives Magnified, on Notes from Nature The Notes from Nature platform has been developed by a team from the University of Florida and SERNEC, supported by funding from the NSF, using the Panoptes open project-building tool on the Zooniverse platform.
- 27. Progress to Date The first batch of 2,000+ chalcid slides were launched on Notes from Nature in mid-August 2016 and completed in mid-January, 2017. The second batch of 2,000+ chalcid slides were launched at the end of January, 2017 and are currently 52% complete – a marked rise in completion rate compared to the first set.
- 28. Participation Statistics Our statistics show a class long-tail pattern of engagement, whereby 14 out of 600+ participants were the most active contributors, and 2 volunteers in particular were ‘super-classifiers’.
- 29. The impact of Visiteering events on classifications October 20th, 2016 - as part of WeDigBio March 2nd, 2017
Notas do Editor
- CKAN from the OKFN Open Source on GitHub MapQuest & Open Street Map Built on APIs
- -all this goes to the Data Portal - Next step is to open to contributions from around the world – YOU are the scientist & observer
- DCP has an ‘iceberg budget’ – the things people associate with DCP are less that what we actually do. The museum would have to do a lot of DCP’s activities with or without the programme. Underpins key museum infrastructure – Collections management, data portal & data architecture Pioneers new technologies and approaches – from imaging workflows to agile project management Influences museum culture and approaches, from data policies to digital skills Lives by museum values - ‘We make our data, experience, knowledge and expertise openly available.’
- Looking for impact, either way
- A combination of DCP and donor funding will enable us to expand on the blue whale scanning project by covering more cetacean skulls – relevant to public programme re oceans, and also to research e.g. changes in response to climate.
- Labour intensive process Old school – happening behind closed doors
- A different kind of challenge – smaller scale but unique, and even more fragile than usual… Equipment / imaging innovation
- A different kind of challenge – smaller scale but unique, and even more fragile than usual… Equipment / imaging innovation
- A different kind of challenge – smaller scale but unique, and even more fragile than usual… Equipment / imaging innovation
- We’ve hacked together some pretty ingenious rigs to get 360 imagery and labels from all angles
- Building on digitisation of the British butterflies & macro-moths, we have received external funding to digitise madagascan specimens, focusing on types – we will learn about the benefits and limitations of type-focused projects and how well these represent a wider group. Preference remains to digitise wider groups but sometimes this is not feasible owing to volumes, taxonomic uncertainty etc. Madagascar is home to some of the richest insect biodiversity on the planet; some 4,600 species of Lepidoptera are described but it is likely most are yet unknown. It is critical we learn more about these species so that groups can be revised and new species understood in relation to one another. In addition, digitisation of these type specimens and making this data available online will help catalyse taxonomic research worldwide at a time of unprecedented decline in Madagascan biodiversity.
- Overall – programme established, within budget and meeting KPIs. Events include NHM Now; Science Uncovered; international conferences such as SPNHC; and VIP tours e.g. for Matt Hancock MP ALSO: Electronic content management proof of concept work Flux file orchestration Sloane herbarium ALICE computer vision numerous tours etc improvements to portal (e.g. rebuild down from 8-9 hrs to 1-2 hrs) data management plans New intranet pages Related projects - Dippy, Cockayne, Human Remains, Blue whale, insect pollinator initiative, Airless
- Crowdsourcing specimen transcription Notes from Nature Parasitoid wasps Natural enemy of the pests who invade our crops
- We are Crowdsourcing specimen transcription Notes from Nature Parasitoid wasps Natural enemy of the pests who invade our crops
- We are Crowdsourcing specimen transcription Notes from Nature Parasitoid wasps Natural enemy of the pests who invade our crops