Despite low user retention, citizen science efforts cut costs

Ars Technica : Citizen science is a relatively new term coined to describe scientific work undertaken by members of the general public in collaboration with professional scientists and scientific institutions. To determine how successful such projects have been, researchers looked at data generated at the Zooniverse site, a webpage devoted to various citizen science projects. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Henry Sauermann of Georgia Tech and Chiara Franzoni of the Politecnico di Milano found that most of the people who check out a project don’t return, and the time they spend on the site is quite short. They also discovered that the top 10% of contributors end up providing about 80% of the work. Despite the initial costs involved in setting up a project, however, the researchers found that citizen science efforts do pay off: The seven projects the researchers focused on saved the projects’ working scientists more than $1.5 million. In addition, such projects are a way to get the public involved and interested in current research.