Citizen Science: Contributions to Astronomy Research

In particular, the Zooniverse projects have demonstrated that research projects can significantly benefit from large numbers of participants in cases especially where human cognitive abilities can supplement automated data analysis. Initial results have shown that for observatories collecting large, sometimes complicated and also survey type datasets, Zooniverse methodology produces robust results as well as serendipitous discoveries. Specifically, citizen scientists have contributed to the results from the large SDSS sky survey, the concentrated transient/planet finding studies from the NASA Kepler mission, characterization of lunar craters and features from the Lunar Reconnaissance Observatory, and the galaxy morphology studies from HST Treasury programs, to name a few. Selection of projects is critical if we are not to waste the time of volunteers or to fail to meet the goal of providing authentic engagement with research. Basic data analysis task should, where possible, be automated rather than thoughtlessly passed to citizen scientists.