Only a small fraction of Americans are formally trained as “scientists.” But that doesn’t mean that only a small fraction of Americans can participate in scientific discovery and innovation. Citizen science and crowdsourcing are approaches that educate, engage, and empower the public to apply their curiosity and talents to a wide range of real-world problems. To raise awareness of these tools and encourage more Americans to take advantage of them, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Domestic Policy Council will host “Open Science and Innovation: Of the People, By the People, For the People,” a live-webcast forum, on Wednesday, September 30th.
Designing a Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing Toolkit for the Federal Government
On November 21, 2014, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) kicked off development of the Toolkit with a human-centered design workshop. Human-centered design is a multi-stage process that requires product designers to engage with different stakeholders in creating, iteratively testing, and refining their product designs. The workshop was planned and executed in partnership with the Office of Personnel Management’s human-centered design practice known as “The Lab” and the Federal Community of Practice on Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science (FCPCCS), a growing network of more than 100 employees from more than 20 Federal agencies.
Crowdsourcing at NASA: Talk at Crowdsourcing Week
My talk in Singapore at Crowdsourcing Week in 2014 was just posted on Youtube. I run through a bunch of examples of NASA prizes and crowdsourcing efforts and how the outcomes of those challenges are creating results for NASA. http://youtu.be/rWCV_TW_UNY?list=UUQqE-w67mZ45ASrU4JsZSSw