An Investigation Into Citizen Cyberscience

When Scientists Meet the Public: An Investigation into Citizen Cyberscience Peter Darch Corpus Christi College University of Oxford A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Michaelmas Term 2011 Peter Darch Corpus Christi College When Scientists Meet the Public: An Investigation into Citizen Cyberscience Abstract Citizen Cyberscience Projects (CCPs) are projects mediated through the Internet, in which teams of scientists recruit members of the public (volunteers) to assist in scientific research, typically through the processing of large quantities of data. This thesis presents qualitative ethnographic case studies of the communities that have formed around two such projects, climateprediction.net and Galaxy Zoo. By considering these social actors in the broader contexts in which they are situated (historical, institutional, social, scientific), I discuss the co-shaping of the interests of these actors, the nature of the relationships amongst these actors, and the infrastructure of the projects and the purposes and nature of the scientific work performed. The thesis focusses on two relationships in particular. The first is that between scientists and volunteers, finding that, although scientists in both projects are concerned with treating volunteers with respect, there are nevertheless considerable differences between the projects. These are related to a number of interconnecting factors, including the particular contexts in which each project is embedded, the nature of the scientific work that volunteers are asked to undertake, the possibilities and challenges for the future development of the projects as perceived by the scientists, and the tools at the disposal of the respective teams of scientists for mediating relationships with volunteers. The second is amongst the volunteers themselves. This thesis argues that volunteers are heterogeneous, from disparate backgrounds, and that they sustain their involvement in CCPs for very different purposes. In particular, they seek to pursue these through the way they negotiate and construct their relationships with other volunteers, drawing on particular features of the project to do so. This thesis contributes to two fields. The first is to Citizen Cyberscience itself, with a view to improving the running of such projects. Some social studies have already been conducted of CCPs to this end, and this thesis both extends the analysis of some of these pre-existing studies and also problematizes aspects of CCPs that these studies had not considered. I discuss the significance of my findings for those involved in setting up and running a CCP, and present some recommendations for practice. The second field is Science and Technology Studies, in particular studies of public engagement with scientific and technological decision- and knowledge-making processes. The modes of engagement found in CCPs differ in key ways from those that have already been documented in the existing literature (in particular, different power relationships) and thus offer new ways of understanding how the public might be engaged successfully in such processes. i Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of a number of people, to whom I am immensely grateful. I would like to thank all the volunteers, scientists and software engineers involved in my two case studies who took the time to speak with me about their experiences in the project. In particular I would like to thank Dr Milo Thurston and Dr Tolu Aina (in the case of climateprediction.net) and Dr Chris Lintott (in the case of Galaxy Zoo) for being my first points of contact in each project, and for their useful advice. In the case of project volunteers, mo.v (in the case of climateprediction.net) and Alice Sheppard (in the case of Galaxy Zoo) gave me invaluable support for how to approach the volunteer communities in the respective projects and for helping with recruiting participants for questionnaires and interviews. I would also like to thank deeply my supervisors, Dr Annamaria Carusi and Dr Marina Jirotka, for their advice, encouragement, support, and feedback, as well as my College advisor, Professor Colin McDiarmid, for support going back to before my undergraduate days. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement and love as I embarked on my doctoral studies, as well as for all the years before then. Above all, this thesis is dedicated to my Mum and Dad, who have given me so much support (both emotional and material), more than I could ever repay. ii Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation for this thesis I: Contributions to Citizen Cyberscience 2 1.1.1 Citizen Cyberscience Projects 2 Historic involvement of citizens in science New forms of citizen science Low-granularity projects: Volunteers play a passive role High-granularity projects: Volunteers play a more active role 1.1.2 Improving the functioning of CCPs 5 Technical challenges Social challenges: Improving volunteer retention Social studies of CCPs Gaps in the literature and my Research Questions 1.2 Motivation II: Contributions to Science and Technology Studies 9 1.3 Case studies 11 climateprediction.net Galaxy Zoo 1.4 Looking ahead to the rest of this thesis 13 2 Scientists who have met the public: A review of the literature on public engagement with science 15 2.1 Science and Technology Studies (STS) 17 2.1.1 Canonical account of science 17 2.1.2 Thomas Kuhn and SSK 18 2.1.3 Laboratory studies 21 2.1.4 Epistemic cultures 22 2.2 Interactions between scientists and the public 24 2.2.1 Lay knowledge and the ‘deficit model’ 25 Challenging the canonical view of science Public alienation and the deficit model Lay knowledges iii Social learning 2.2.2 Alternatives to the deficit model 36 Examples of laypeople crossing the boundary Engaging laypeople 2.3 Interactions amongst laypeople 43 2.4 Conclusion 45 3 Methodology 47 3.1 My approach to research: Conducting ethnography online 48 3.1.1 Ethnography and the study of science 49 3.1.2 Online ethnography 51 3.2 Proceeding with field work 54 3.2.1 A note on research ethics 55 3.2.2 Interviews 56 3.2.3 Observing the online forums 57 3.2.4 Other sources of data 59 3.2.5 Supplementary work 59 3.2.6 Data analysis and writing-up 60 3.3 Conclusion 61 4 The Galaxy Zoo project: Challenges past and present 63 4.1 Introduction 63 4.1.1 Technology and society 64 4.1.2 The structure of my argument 68 4.2 Galaxy Zoo in context 70 4.2.1 Cosmology and the history of astronomy 70 4.2.2 The lowlier status of cosmology in astronomy 71 4.3 The Galaxy Zoo project 74 4.3.1 The launch of Galaxy Zoo 74 4.3.2 The scientific work of Galaxy Zoo 75 The project website The core work: Galaxy Zoos 1 and 2 iv Serendipitous discoveries 4.3.3 The Zooniverse and the Citizen Science Alliance 86 4.4 Enrolling other astronomers 90 4.4.1 Motivation for astronomers to become enrolled by Galaxy Zoo 90 4.4.2 Gaining credibility in the broader scientific community 93 4.5 Looking towards the future 98 4.6 Conclusion 101 The co-shaping of cosmology, Galaxy Zoo and the interests of the projects’ scientists Challenges past, present and future 5 The Galaxy Zoo ethos: Scientists’ relationships with volunteers 104 5.1 Introduction 104 5.2 The ethos of scientific practice 106 5.2.1 Mertonian norms of scientific practice 106 5.2.2 At what level do these norms operate? 107 Rhetorical deployment of Mertonian norms 5.3 The ethos of how Galaxy Zoo scientists should treat volunteers 109 5.4 Galaxy Zoo ethos part I: Crediting the contribution of volunteers 110 5.4.1 A league table of volunteers: Early implementation followed by swift abolition 111 5.4.2 An egalitarian approach to volunteer recognition 112 Egalitarian approaches to crediting volunteers The core teams’ interests 5.4.3 Improving the quality of individual classifications 115 5.4.4 Improving the robustness of Galaxy Zoo data 116 5.4.5 An increasing awareness of the potential for serendipitous discoveries 117 The perceived importance by the core team of serendipitous discoveries. Establishing the credibility of Galaxy Zoo Securing the future of Galaxy Zoo An emergent belief in the potential benefits of serendipitous discoveries 5.4.6 The co-shaping of interests and methods for crediting volunteers? 121 5.5 Galaxy Zoo ethos part II: The project blog 122 v 5.5.1 The blog’s launch and its subsequent operation 123 5.5.2 The project blog: An ethical duty to blog 124 A duty to blog The cost to Galaxy Zoo scientists of blogging 5.5.3 Establishing and writing the project blog: Pragmatic moves 128 5.5.4 The blog’s shaping of both the Galaxy Zoo ethos and the core team’s interests 130 5.5.5 Exchanges between the Galaxy Zoo scientists and the volunteers 131 5.6 The ‘knowledge economy’ of Galaxy Zoo 131 5.6.1 The gift economy of knowledge 132 5.6.2 Market model of the knowledge economy 133 5.6.3 The knowledge economy and forms of crediting volunteers in Galaxy Zoo 134 5.6.4 The knowledge economy and the Galaxy Zoo blog 136 5.6.5 Galaxy Zoo and Mertonian norms of scientific ethos 137 5.7 Conclusion 138 Processes of co-shaping The Galaxy Zoo core team Gift economy of knowledge and norms of scientific practice 6 climateprediction.net and approaches to volunteer retention 141 6.1 Introduction 141 6.2 climateprediction.net in context 143 6.2.1 Weather forecasting and the development of computational models for climate change 144 6.2.2 Challenges to climate change modelling: Technical and social

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