Educational Interventions in Zooniverse Projects

The Zooniverse education team has been looking for ways to provide deeper engagement opportunities for its volunteers in the citizen science projects they are contributing to. Zooniverse should be providing resources within... [ view full abstract ]

The Zooniverse education team has been looking for ways to provide deeper engagement opportunities for its volunteers in the citizen science projects they are contributing to. Zooniverse should be providing resources within the project to empower a more diverse group of full-fledged citizen scientists. Google analytics shows that volunteers rarely visit the science pages, therefore the science should be brought to them.

The relaunch of Planet Hunters in Fall 2014 provided Zooniverse with an opportunity to test new methods to more effectively providing participants with further awareness of the science behind the project they are contributing to. Using an innovative system of embedded mini courses, the volunteer will be periodically interrupted during the classification process to expand their knowledge of that project.

Data collected from Planet Hunters will inform the design of future mini courses in other projects, these courses will be designed to provide the interested user more background information into the research and how the citizen science of that project works. These will be a motivator and confidence builder for participants, as well as you make them feel more invested in the project.

This talk will share what has been learned so far about the volunteers’ use of the educational tools, the A/B split results from the Planet Hunters interventions and outline a plan to create a template for developing these interventions for science teams to use as guidelines for long-term engagement.