Participants have an opportunity to interact with each other, and with the project scientists on the Planet Hunters website. There are three separate features that allow this interaction: the ‘Talk’ function; the discussion boards; and the project blog.
The Talk function53 is used by participants to draw attention to light curves of interest. After analysing a light curve, the participant is asked whether they would like to talk about it. If they do, then they can post a message (which has a limit of 140 characters) which then appears with the image of the light curve in the Talk section under a list entitled ‘Recent Objects’. Other participants may look at these objects and comment, perhaps checking to see if they see any evidence of a transit, or if the object shows some kind of unexpected feature. Images can be grouped into ‘collections’ and project
scientists can monitor these for any patterns of interest.
In addition to the Talk feature, participants also have the option to communicate with each other on the discussion boards54 (these do not impose a character limit). The discussion boards are divided into ‘help’, ‘the science’ and ‘chat’ and provide a forum where participants can learn more about the project, and are able to discuss items of interest in more detail than in the Talk function. Both citizen scientists and members of the project team use these areas and they are moderated by three different citizen scientist volunteers. Discussions are generally related to the project and the associated science, even in the ‘chat’ section. A recent study investigating how Planet Hunter
53 Link to Talk area of Planet Hunters. http://talk.planethunters.org/ 54
135 participants learn about the project task, found that the Talk function was used much more widely that the discussion boards. There were almost 330 000 contributions to Talk compared with 17 000 contributions to the discussion board (Mugar et al., 2014).
One or two members of the scientific team communicate with the project participants through the Planet Hunters Blog which contains news and updates about the project, background information about the science, and details relating to the publication of research or presentations at academic meetings. Citizen scientist volunteers can
comment on these posts. Occasionally there are guest blogs from postgraduate students, and moderators of the discussion boards. Zooniverse projects, including Planet Hunters, are establishing a presence on social media sites such as Twitter (over 8 600 followers) and Facebook (over 320 000 ‘likes’)55.
4.3.4 Participant experience
I first heard about the Zooniverse in 2009 while undertaking an MSc project in astronomy outreach (Curtis, 2013) and became a participant in their first project (Galaxy Zoo) for a couple of months. In January 2011, a new Zooniverse project, Planet Hunters, was promoted on the BBC ‘Stargazing Live’ programme. This was of interest to me and I participated occasionally over the next few weeks. I did not visit the Zooniverse again until October 2011 at the beginning of my PhD research where I found that the number of projects had increased significantly. Previous knowledge of the Zooniverse and of Planet Hunters has helped to establish my interest in online citizen science projects, and
influenced my choice of Planet Hunters as a case study in this research.
55
136 Learning and carrying out the project task
The task of classifying light curves on Planet Hunters differs from that of other Zooniverse astronomy projects as the participant is not looking at an astronomical image, but at graphical data. The task can be demanding as it is not immediately obvious whether there is evidence of a planetary transit, and some of the light curves require close
examination. There is a short online tutorial, although this is based on an example where there are obvious signs of a planetary transit. Many of the light curves in the Kepler database that I have been given to analyse have had a substantial amount of ‘noise’. One source of frustration while learning the project task was that there is no feedback given to participants if they have made an incorrect classification, or indeed, a correct one. Space Warps, another Zooniverse project has ‘dummy’ or constructed examples of the items of interest (in this project, it is visual evidence of gravitational lenses) that are periodically given to participants to classify. The participant is then told if these were correctly or incorrectly assessed, so providing some feedback and a reminder of what it is they are actually looking for. I felt that such a facility would be useful in Planet Hunters, and would help to sustain participation.
However, as a participant, the fact that each light curve represents an actual star (with an alpha-numeric reference), made the task feel authentic, as did the fact that this data was derived from an ongoing NASA project. Both of these factors helped to motivate me while learning the task, and carrying it out. The Planet Hunters task itself is somewhat monotonous and I did not usually spend more than 10 minutes classifying light curves per visit. As of August 2014, I have classified over 500 stars. I often visited other Zooniverse projects in one session if I had the time, and spent a similar length classifying on other projects. According to members of the Zooniverse team who were interviewed, many
137 participants are active on a number of Zooniverse projects. The amount of time devoted to each is recorded, and total contribution can be displayed on a personal ‘ribbon’ of participation (Figure 4.20 illustrates my participation on Zooniverse projects).
While I was a regular contributor, I seldom took part in anything apart from classifying light curves. I have not examined the raw Kepler data and only occasionally took part in online discussions or used the Talk function. There is little requirement to go beyond the main project task, and there are not many alternative tasks available apart from forum moderator. Despite the presence of the Talk function and the discussion boards, my participation in Planet Hunters was mainly a solitary pursuit.
Figure 4.20 Participation ‘ribbon’ for the Zooniverse
1 400 total classifications have been made in 16 projects
projects
Most activity has been on Planet Hunters
138 Observing interaction on Planet Hunters
Much of the content of Planet Hunter interactions was technical in nature and was related to the project task. In all communication spaces interaction was dominated by the same small group of participants (I observed the same 10-15 participants). There are a small number of discussion threads that are slightly more personal nature. For example there is one entitled ‘who are the Planet Hunters?’ in which a small number of
participants have introduced themselves and given a bit of background information such as where they’re from, occupation, and what brought them to the project. For many, their participation was motivated by an interest in astronomy, and the opportunity to make a new discovery. This thread is over two years old however, and there have been no new posts for many months. Of the team of project scientists, only one is visible to any great extent. She writes the majority of the blog posts, and responds to items raised on Talk and on the discussion boards.
My interaction with other participants in Planet Hunters has been relatively limited. I have seldom used the Planet Hunters Talk function, as I felt that very few of the light curves warranted further discussions and I have rarely observed evidence of planetary transits. On the few occasions where I have posted a light curve on Talk that I was interested in, I received no feedback or comments from other participants. The lack of any response has been a disincentive for further use. The fact that Talk comments are limited to 140 characters also made this feature less appealing to me, and I have
preferred to use the discussion board or the project blog for finding out what is going on within the project.
While much of the discussion on the forum can get quite detailed and technical, I have taken part in several of the discussion threads, including the ‘Who are the Planet
139 Hunters?’ thread. However, I received no response or feedback from any of the other individuals who had contributed to this conversation. I used this thread as an opportunity to talk a bit about my research (as well as make my presence as a researcher known) and why I was interested in Planet Hunters. I also posted a link to my survey on the discussion board, and while it attracted a number of respondents, in generated no discussion or further comment on the website. While there is evidence of a small group of active contributors, they appear to be distant and hard to engage with unless one has a greater level of technical interest in the project. Interaction in Planet Hunters appears to be limited to this group of participants.
On several occasions, the Zooniverse team have organised meet-ups in the UK for
participants of Zooniverse projects, and in June 2013 I attended the ‘Zoocon’ event at the University of Oxford. Several of the Zooniverse project scientists were there and
presented project updates, and I was able to meet some of the core participants from a number of the Zooniverse projects. However, it did not appear that any of core group from Planet Hunters had attended (the forum moderators and two individuals who have appeared as co-authors on Planet Hunters papers are based in the US). Many of those who attended had been with the Zooniverse for a number of years and knew each other through their involvement in Galaxy Zoo. These individuals had established friendships with each other, as well as with some of the project scientists, and several of the
attendees were forum moderators. This meet-up took place just after I had launched my survey, and I was able to talk to several participants about my research. At a number of points during this event, project scientists expressed their gratitude to participants for their contributions, and one stated that the event was a way to keep participants involved
140 and make them feel valued, thus demonstrating the importance that recognition may play in sustaining participation in these projects.