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

生物收藏(即自然历史收藏)代表着不可替代的自然遗产，它们一起提供了关于我们国家和地球生物多样性的关键信息。在一个以行星尺度的人为变化为主的时代，历史和最近的生物收集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原因的宝贵基准。不幸的是，这些对监测地球健康至关重要的基准数据中的绝大多数都被锁定在模拟格式中，这阻碍了它们的更广泛使用。迫切需要的是从标本柜中解放数据的新方法。但是，能够用互联网规模的资源实现这一壮举的技术进步，尽管在原型上很有希望，但既不能扩展到应对挑战，也不能获得。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PIS将进一步发展互联网规模的公民科学--即主要由公共志愿者参与者对科学研究做出的贡献，以便显著推进将我们遗留的生物多样性记录数字化的任务。公民科学不仅仅是一种加强数据收集的方式，它还在科学家和更广泛的社区之间建立了互惠互利的伙伴关系。特别是，我国从事公民工作的科学家可以获得关于生物体、生物收集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。这项由这笔赠款资助的工作推动了公民科学平台从目前的原型进入生产。来自自然的笔记向支持互联网的志愿者展示了一组存储在全国各地生物收藏中的生物样本图像，并要求他们帮助转录与这些样本图像相关联的标签中的内容。这些转录的内容然后被送回给那些成像标本的提供者。来自自然的笔记在吸引公众参与高质量数据生成方面已经有了很好的记录，但它是作为概念证明而开发的，无法满足生物收集或其忠诚的公民科学家的需求。推进自然笔记的重点领域包括：(1)为提供商提供近零成本和快速参与的工具(特别是Biospex)，(2)提高转录效率，以及(3)新的激励措施和改进的指标，以促进用户和提供商的参与。在这一过程中，该项目将为加强与其他国家规模的项目的整合奠定基础，如NSF的推进生物收集数字化计划和生命地图。计划对这一主题进行几个自然延伸，以增加公众对科学的参与和理解，并在我们的科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)劳动力队伍中建立多样性。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界代表性不足的社区。还将开发佛罗里达自然历史博物馆的原型博物馆转录亭，以及用于课堂使用的教案和针对高中(解决共同核心标准)和本科水平的评估。该STEM项目还将培养两名指定的女性博士后研究人员。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/.