citizen science in the era of the square kilometre array
TRANSCRIPT
Citizen Science in the era of the Square Kilometre Array
Juande Santander-Vela SKA Organisation
Golden era of astronomy
Possible through ICT innovation
Possible through ICT innovation
Possible through ICT innovation
Possible through ICT innovation
Possible through ICT innovation
Same ICT innovation for companies and consumers
#1 ICT innovation: broadband
Digital data is easy to access from everywhere
Digital data access is blind to who you are
Digital data access is (mostly) blind to who you are
Golden era of astronomy
Golden era of amateur astronomy
http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/
How is this possible?
How is this possible?
• Analog → Digital Data
• Common Data Formats
• Anonymous Access
• Lots of scientific Meta-Data
How is this possible?
• Analog → Digital Data
• Common Data Formats
• Anonymous Access
• Lots of scientific Meta-Data
Hidden
treasures!
Hanny’s Voorwerp
https://www.galaxyzoo.org/
Hanny’s Voorwerp
https://www.galaxyzoo.org/
Citizen Science is science done by many citizens, looking at
real scientific data
Citizen Science ⟷ Crowdsourced Data Science
Citizen Science ⟷ Crowdsourced Data Science• Data (and metadata!) needs to be very well curated/mantained/
tagged so that both the existing data exposed to citizens, and the data provided by them, can be meaningfully linked together.
→ Spatial: Telescope Centric (Az/Alt), Earth centric (RA/Dec, FK4, FK5, ICRS), Solar centric (Ecliptic), Galactic centric (Galactic coordinates), Super galactic…
→ Temporal: UTC, TAI, Julian date, HA… and cosmology times/distances!
→ Observable: Polarisation, Flux…
Citizen Science ⟷ Cloud Science
Citizen Science ⟷ Cloud Science• The only way to gather everyone is in the cloud
• Working on local copies is hard → remote tools allow for easier integration of contributions
• Do you have the tool?
• Do you know there the data is?
• Do I have permission to change this?
But this is the challenge we’re facing!
ALMA
ALMA
ALMA SKA1
ALMA SKA1
What tools can we use to…
• Visualise those datasets? → Remote vs Local visualisation and interaction
• Process those datasets for additional science → Remote vs Local processing
What tools can we use to…
• Visualise those datasets? → Remote vs Local visualisation and interaction
• Process those datasets for additional science → Remote vs Local processing
☁
☁
What tools can we use to…
• Visualise those datasets? → Remote vs Local visualisation and interaction
• Process those datasets for additional science → Remote vs Local processing
☁ !
☁ !
Working on it!
Conclusions• Citizen Science is enabled by ICT… and so is science for new large
research facilities
• Challenges for Citizen Science are challenges for normal science in the SKA era
• Citizen Science makes some new science possible ⟷ Asynchronous Pro/Amateur collaboration
• Techniques are multi-disciplinary, not just for astronomy!
Conclusions• Citizen Science is enabled by ICT… and so is science for new large
research facilities
• Challenges for Citizen Science are challenges for normal science in the SKA era → we need to sort it out!
• Citizen Science makes some new science possible ⟷ Asynchronous Pro/Amateur collaboration
• Techniques are multi-disciplinary, not just for astronomy!
Conclusions• Citizen Science is enabled by ICT… and so is science for new large
research facilities
• Challenges for Citizen Science are challenges for normal science in the SKA era → we need to sort it out!
• Citizen Science makes some new science possible ⟷ Asynchronous Pro/Amateur collaboration → more people looking in the haystack!
• Techniques are multi-disciplinary, not just for astronomy!
¿Questions?
We have not spoken about…
• Digital literacy ⟷ Coding
• Open Data ⟷ Virtual Observatory :: Social Siences ⟷ Astronomy
• Metadata and Curation
• Citizen Science-like Infrastructures: e-Government, Integrated Healthcare…