Throughout history, meaningful contributions to science have been
made by members of the public. These citizen scientists have
historically contributed by collecting data that is hard for a single
scientist to collect such as weather information or the paths of
migrating birds. Recently, advances in computer technology have opened
new possibilities for citizen scientists to participate in science
projects by helping with data analysis. We are investigating what
motivates people to do this and what they learn when they do so. To do
so, we are working with Galaxy Zoo and the Zooniverse family
of citizen science projects.
