Citizen Science Data is the New Data Bitcoin

The Arctic Glass project has spiderwebbed out into a handful of directions I hadn't originally planned, one being "how to capitalize on citizen science." Originally citizen science came up only briefly on my Toolik visit, and was specific to solving instrument validation issues for USGS stream gauges in remote locations. I spoke for a while with the techs doing readings in hard-to-reach places like Barrow, AK, or even at the non-helicopter only sites like a truck ride a few miles up the pipeline haul road. Getting to these locations are time-consuming, and a misbehaving gauge doesn't often show up as an issue until the data is missing. What if there was "a guy" or someone local to the area that goes by that particular gauge on a regular basis. This "guy" might not have the training to fix instrument issues, but what if there was an early warning light or something simple to tell an average observer the instrument is having issues?

And so has been the general extent of citizen science to date. Scientists set up the observation, citizens help with the readings. This has been a great success on websites such as Zooniverse.org, and has even resulted in new discoveries coming directly from observant enthusiasts. But what happens when the volume of data we are churning out on a daily basis in our cities, airplanes, ships, and even personal devices eclipses the volume of data collected by the traditional scientific process?

This is where I personally find things to get really interesting. Here is the concept I have been playing with: What if data wasn't a product, but a currency? In that I mean, has transactional value that is measured rather than volume for volume's sake? In this model, we might view scientific data as similar to traditional dollars. Reasonably well structured and monitored (with those pesky data management plans) at the least. I akin traditional data collected by scientists and mostly for scientists just like the good 'ol dollar bill. If we assume traditional scientific data is like the dollar: trusted, backed by known "value", regulated....where does that leave data collected by citizens? OR, citizens that are also scientists, but not working in their given domain for a particular project, just for fun? (In other words, we can't assume the data is poorly collected and therefore less valid.)

So then, it looks to me like citizen science data is to data as bitcoin is to dollars. It's untrusted, wild, making its own rules, with everyone trying to constantly validate it on an old standard for traditional data that may no longer apply. Most importantly,  in the future citizen science data will most likely be more plentiful and more granular (think local collections in houses next to each other) than traditionally collected data. It's even feasible a market for citizen science data could flourish along side the market for harder-to-get scientific satellite data.

Just like bitcoin, only time will tell I suppose, if this prediction becomes a reality. However, I am feeling fairly confident here given the technology to perform credible scientific work is available. The first thing we need to figure out is value of citizen data, and also traditional scientific data for that matter. For example, at this point we aren't even sure if our data is worth a chicken, a pig, or two bags of flour....or if value is variable depending on transaction participants.

Promoting Awareness and Attracting Collaborators: American Geophysical Union Conference 2013

As the 2014 AGU conference quickly approaches, I'm taking some time to document my time spent at the American Geophysical Union conference in December 2013 in search of collaborators for the Arctic Glass project. I gave a short presentation during the polar cyberinfrustructure track at the conference. From this and other discussions held on the conference trade floor, I gathered approximately 20 contacts that were 'definitely interested' in exploring the use of Google Glass with their work. Of those 20, 7-8 contacts had definitive ideas regarding what projects they would pursue using. This is even more of an interesting metric to me now we (Scientific Computing team at AWS) are experimenting with a similar approach to finding collaborators this year at AGU. I am also very interested to find out if the Arduino-style "internet of things" will be more prevalent this year. There's a lot of promise in Maker devices to measure in-home toxins, back yard garden soil richness, and even your own biometric activities. The internet of things will rely on the rapid prototyping abilities of these types of DIY boards, which in turn means the probability federal agencies involved with local scale environmental modeling enlisting this type of sensor data collection is very high. All of this for another post for now...

Overall, it definitely seems targeting the appropriate professional event for the community you wish to engage is still a tried and true method of making collaboration connections. I am curious to see how the upcoming fall 2014 meeting pans out for AWS, because the connection I made at AGU 2013 that enabled this project was at the Toolik Field Station exhibition floor booth.