New Study Finds Citizen Scientists Can Be Very Accurate
Between 2010 and 2013, the website Snapshot Serengeti presented citizen scientists with the opportunity to help organize more than 1.2 million images (including some hilarious animal
New Study Finds Citizen Scientists Can Be Very Accurate
Between 2010 and 2013, the website Snapshot Serengeti presented citizen scientists with the opportunity to help organize more than 1.2 million images (including some hilarious animal selfies) captured by a camera trap in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. These volunteers helped identify which images in the dataset contained animals and classified the species pictured, the number of animals, and any behaviors on display.
A new analysis of the work of these citizen scientists shows that trusting untrained strangers with scientific data isn’t a terrible idea. As the study in Conservation Biology notes, overall, volunteers classified 98 percent of the images accurately, based on a comparison with expert answers.
On average, 27 volunteers viewed each image, but even the images tha