Lessons from fraxinus, a crowd-sourced citizen science game in genomics

Rallapalli, Ghanasyam, Players, Fraxinus, Saunders, Diane Go, Yoshida, Kentaro, Edwards, Anne, Lugo, Carlos A., Collin, Steve, Clavijo, Bernardo, Corpas, Manuel, Swarbreck, David, Clark, Matthew, Downie, J. Allan, Kamoun, Sophien ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0290-0315 and MacLean, Dan and Team Cooper (2015) Lessons from fraxinus, a crowd-sourced citizen science game in genomics. eLife, 4. ISSN 2050-084X

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Abstract

In 2013, in response to an epidemic of ash dieback disease in England the previous year, we launched a Facebook-based game called Fraxinus to enable non-scientists to contribute to genomics studies of the pathogen that causes the disease and the ash trees that are devastated by it. Over a period of 51 weeks players were able to match computational alignments of genetic sequences in 78% of cases, and to improve them in 15% of cases. We also found that most players were only transiently interested in the game, and that the majority of the work done was performed by a small group of dedicated players. Based on our experiences we have built a linear model for the length of time that contributors are likely to donate to a crowd-sourced citizen science project. This model could serve a guide for the design and implementation of future crowd-sourced citizen science initiatives.

Item Type: Article
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > The Sainsbury Laboratory
Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Plant Sciences
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 01 Jun 2016 12:00
Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 00:51
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59172
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.07460

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