Zooniverse

For other uses, see Zooniverse (disambiguation).

Zooniverse
Type of site
Citizen science web portal
Available inEnglish, German, Polish
OwnerCitizen Science Alliance[1]
Created byFingerprint Digital Media
URLwww.zooniverse.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
Launched12 December 2009;
14 years ago (2009-12-12)[2]
Current statusOnline

Zooniverse is a citizen science web portal owned and operated by the Citizen Science Alliance. It is home to some of the Internet's largest, most popular and most successful citizen science projects.[3] The organization grew from the original Galaxy Zoo project and now hosts dozens of projects which allow volunteers to participate in crowdsourced scientific research. It has headquarters at Oxford University and the Adler Planetarium.[4] Unlike many early internet-based citizen science projects (such as SETI@home) which used spare computer processing power to analyse data, known as volunteer computing, Zooniverse projects require the active participation of human volunteers to complete research tasks. Projects have been drawn from disciplines including astronomy, ecology, cell biology, humanities, and climate science.[5]

As of 14 February 2014, the Zooniverse community consisted of more than 1 million registered volunteers.[6] By March 2019, that number had reportedly risen to 1.6 million.[7] The volunteers are often collectively referred to as "Zooites".[8][9] The data collected from the various projects has led to the publication of more than 100 scientific papers.[10] A daily news website called 'The Daily Zooniverse' provides information on the different projects under the Zooniverse umbrella, and has a presence on social media.

The founder and former principal investigator (P.I.) of the project, Chris Lintott, published a book called The Crowd & the Cosmos: Adventures in the Zooniverse in 2019.[11] In September 2023 the role of P.I. was taken over by Laura Trouille, VP of Science Engagement at the Adler Planetarium, who was co-P.I. for Zooniverse from 2015-2023.[12]

  1. ^ "Projects". Citizen Science Alliance. Archived from the original on 29 November 2011. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
  2. ^ "The Zooniverse is Go". 12 December 2009. Archived from the original on 13 September 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
  3. ^ "New Zooniverse projects – Bat Detective and Click to Cure". European Space Education Resource Office. 30 October 2012. Archived from the original on 14 October 2014. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  4. ^ Johnson, Steve (29 January 2014). "Want to aid science? You can Zooniverse". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 12 September 2014. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
  5. ^ Krevans; Fortson & Brusuelas (4 December 2012). "Crowdsourcing ancient texts". IAS, University of Minnesota. Archived from the original on 27 December 2012. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
  6. ^ Shannon Hall (17 February 2014). "Zooniverse Reaches One Million Volunteers". Universe Today. Archived from the original on 15 September 2014. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  7. ^ "Combining artificial intelligence and citizen science to improve wildlife surveys". Mongabay Environmental News. 22 March 2019. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  8. ^ Croft, Ann (16 August 2007). "Galaxy Zoo - Amateurs Analysing Galaxies". Archived from the original on 13 August 2014. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
  9. ^ A.K. Finkbeiner (2010). A Grand and Bold Thing: An Extraordinary New Map of the Universe Ushering in a New Era of Discovery. Free Press. ISBN 978-1416552161.
  10. ^ "Publications". Zooniverse. Archived from the original on 14 October 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  11. ^ Lintott, Chris (24 October 2019). The Crowd and the Cosmos: Adventures in the Zooniverse. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198842224. Archived from the original on 1 August 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  12. ^ "Our Team". www.zooniverse.org. Retrieved 20 July 2024.