Collaborative Research: ABI DEVELOPMENT: Notes from Nature: Advancing a Next Generation Citizen Science Platform For Biocollection Transcription

生物收集（即，自然历史收藏品）是不可替代的自然遗产，它们共同提供了关于我们国家和地球生物多样性的重要信息。在一个以行星尺度人为变化为主的时代，历史和最近的生物标本及其相关数据都是分析环境变化的生物影响和确定其因果因素的有价值的基准。 不幸的是，绝大多数对监测地球健康至关重要的基线数据都被锁定在模拟格式中，这阻碍了它们的广泛使用。 迫切需要的是从标本柜中解放数据的新方法。 但是，能够利用互联网规模的资源实现这一壮举的技术进步，虽然在原型上很有希望，但既不能扩展到挑战，也不可用。 来自佛罗里达大学、佛罗里达州立大学、伊利诺伊大学、耶鲁大学和阿德勒天文馆的PI将进一步发展互联网规模的公民科学--即主要由公众志愿者参与的科学研究的数据、分析或解决方案的贡献，以显著地推进恢复我们的遗产生物多样性记录的使命。公民科学不仅是加强数据收集的一种方式，而且还在科学家和更广泛的社区之间建立了互利的伙伴关系。特别是，我们国家的参与公民科学家可以获得有关生物、生物收藏及其研究价值以及生物多样性研究对人类福祉的影响的有用知识。 这项资助下的工作推动了公民科学平台Notes from Nature从目前的原型到生产。 《自然》杂志向志愿者提供了一组存储在全国各地生物标本馆的图像生物标本，并要求他们帮助转录与这些标本图像相关的标签内容。 然后将这些转录的内容递送回那些成像标本的提供者。 《自然笔记》在让公众参与高质量数据生成方面已经有了很好的记录，但它是作为一种概念验证而开发的，无法满足生物收藏或其忠实的公民科学家的需求。 推进《自然笔记》的重点领域包括：（1）为提供商提供接近零成本和快速参与的工具（尤其是Biospex），（2）提高转录效率，（3）新的激励措施和改进的指标，以进一步促进用户和提供商的参与。 在此过程中，该项目将为增加与其他国家级项目的整合奠定基础，如NSF的生物收集计划和生命地图的推进数字化。 这个主题的几个自然扩展计划增加公众参与，和理解，科学和建立我们的科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）劳动力的多样性。 特别是，该项目将开发现场和虚拟“转录闪电战”的功能，特别是针对那些在科学领域代表性不足的社区。 还将开发一个原型博物馆转录亭在佛罗里达自然历史博物馆以及课堂使用的课程计划和评估针对高中（解决共同核心标准）和本科水平。这个STEM项目还将培养两名有名有姓的女博士后研究人员。这个项目的结果可以在http://www.notesfromnature.org/上找到。

Biocollections (i.e., natural history collections) represent irreplaceable natural heritage that taken together provide critical information about our national and planetary biodiversity. In an era dominated by planetary-scale anthropogenic change, both historical and recent biocollection specimens and their associated data represent valuable benchmarks for analyzing the biological impacts of environmental change and determining its causal factors. Unfortunately, the vast majority of this baseline data critical to monitor our planet's health are locked away in analog formats that impede their broader use. Desperately needed are new approaches for liberating the data from specimen cabinets. But technological advances that would enable this feat with internet-scale resources, while promising in prototype, are neither scalable to the challenge nor available. PIs from University of Florida, Florida State University, University of Illinois, Yale, and the Adler Planetarium will further develop Internet-scale citizen science - that is, the contribution of data, analyses or solutions to scientific research primarily by public volunteer participants, in order to significantly further the mission to digitize our legacy biodiversity records. Citizen science is not merely a way to enhance data gathering but it also creates mutually beneficial partnerships between scientists and the broader community. In particular, engaged citizen scientists of our nation can gain useful knowledge about organisms, biocollections and their research value, and the impact of biodiversity research on human welfare. The work funded under this grant advances the citizen science platform Notes from Nature from its current prototype into production. Notes from Nature presents Internet-enabled volunteers a set of imaged biological specimens stored in biocollections across the nation, and asks them to help transcribe contents from the labels associated with those specimen images. These transcribed contents are then delivered back to the providers of those imaged specimens. Notes from Nature already has a strong record for engaging the public in high quality data generation, but was developed as a proof of concept that cannot scale to the demand from either biocollections or its devoted citizen scientists. Focal areas for advancing Notes from Nature include: (1) tools for providers that provide near zero-cost and fast involvement (especially Biospex), (2) increased transcription efficiencies, and (3) novel incentives and improved metrics to further user and provider engagement. In the process, the project will build a foundation for increased integration with other national scale projects such as NSF's Advancing Digitization of Biological Collection program and Map of Life. Several natural extensions of this topic are planned to increase public engagement with, and understanding of, science and build diversity in our Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) workforce. In particular, the project will develop functionality for onsite and virtual "transcription blitzes", especially targeted to those communities who are underrepresented in the sciences. Also developed will be a prototype museum transcription kiosk at Florida Museum of Natural History as well as for classroom use with a lesson plan and evaluations targeted at both high school (addressing Common Core Standards) and undergraduate levels. This STEM project will also train two named female postdoctoral researchers. Results from this project can be found at http://www.notesfromnature.org/.