Galaxy Zoo: Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers

Alexander S. Szalay (Johns Hopkins University); Chris J. Lintott (Oxford University); Georgia Bracey; Jan Vandenberg (Johns Hopkins University); Kevin Schawinski (Einstein Fellow; M. Jordan Raddick (Johns Hopkins University); Pamela L. Gay (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville); Phil Murray (Fingerprint Digital Media); Yale University)

arxiv: 0909.2925 · v1 · pith:C5CVR4EMnew · submitted 2009-09-16 · 🌌 astro-ph.IM · astro-ph.GA· physics.pop-ph

Galaxy Zoo: Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers

M. Jordan Raddick (Johns Hopkins University) , Georgia Bracey , Pamela L. Gay (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) , Chris J. Lintott (Oxford University) , Phil Murray (Fingerprint Digital Media) , Kevin Schawinski (Einstein Fellow , Yale University) , Alexander S. Szalay (Johns Hopkins University)

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Jan Vandenberg (Johns Hopkins University)

This is my paper

classification 🌌 astro-ph.IM astro-ph.GAphysics.pop-ph

keywords galaxymotivationsvolunteerscitizensciencesurveyanyoneapril

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The Galaxy Zoo citizen science website invites anyone with an Internet connection to participate in research by classifying galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. As of April 2009, more than 200,000 volunteers had made more than 100 million galaxy classifications. In this paper, we present results of a pilot study into the motivations and demographics of Galaxy Zoo volunteers, and define a technique to determine motivations from free responses that can be used in larger multiple-choice surveys with similar populations. Our categories form the basis for a future survey, with the goal of determining the prevalence of each motivation.

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