Design Principles of Online Learning Communities in Citizen Science

Online communities for citizen science are expanding rapidly, giving participants the opportunity to take part in a wide range of activities, from monitoring invasive species to targeting pollution sources. These communities bring together the virtual and physical worlds in new ways that are egalitarian, collaborative, applied, localized and globalized to solve real environmental problems. Rural communities especially can leverage these learning and sharing spaces to take advantage of resources they would otherwise not be able to access. A small number of citizen science projects truly use an online commu­nity to connect, engage, and empower participants to make local change happen. This multiple case study looked at three online citizen communities that have successful­ly fostered online collaboration and on-the-ground environmental actions. The findings provide insight into potential design principles for online citizen science communities that support environmental actions in our backyards

Designing for Online Collaborations and Local Environmental Action In Citizen Science: A Multiple Case Study

Traditional citizen science projects have been based on the scientific community’s need to gather vast quantities of high quality data, neglecting to ask what the project participants get in return. How can participants be seen more as collaborative partners in citizen science projects? Online communities for citizen science are expanding rapidly, giving participants the opportunity to take part in a wide range of activities, from monitoring invasive species to identifying far-off galaxies. These communities can bring together the virtual and physical worlds in new ways that are egalitarian, collaborative, applied, localized and globalized to solve real environmental problems. There are a small number of citizen science projects that leverage the affordances of an online community to connect, engage, and empower participants to make local change happen. This multiple case study applies a conceptual framework rooted in sociocultural learning theory, Non-Hierarchical Online Learning Communities (NHOLCs), to three online citizen communities that have successfully fostered online collaboration and on-the-ground environmental actions. The purpose of the study is to identify the range and variation of the online and programmatic functions available in each project. The findings lead to recommendations for designing these innovative communities, specifically the technological and programmatic components of online citizen science communities that support environmental actions in our backyards

Designing for Online Collaborations and Local Environmental Action In Citizen Science: A Multiple Case Study

Traditional citizen science projects have been based on the scientific community’s need to gather vast quantities of high quality data, neglecting to ask what the project participants get in return. How can participants be seen more as collaborative partners in citizen science projects? Online communities for citizen science are expanding rapidly, giving participants the opportunity to take part in a wide range of activities, from monitoring invasive species to identifying far-off galaxies. These communities can bring together the virtual and physical worlds in new ways that are egalitarian, collaborative, applied, localized and globalized to solve real environmental problems. There are a small number of citizen science projects that leverage the affordances of an online community to connect, engage, and empower participants to make local change happen. This multiple case study applies a conceptual framework rooted in sociocultural learning theory, Non-Hierarchical Online Learning Communities (NHOLCs), to three online citizen communities that have successfully fostered online collaboration and on-the-ground environmental actions. The purpose of the study is to identify the range and variation of the online and programmatic functions available in each project. The findings lead to recommendations for designing these innovative communities, specifically the technological and programmatic components of online citizen science communities that support environmental actions in our backyards

Using Q-Sort Methodology to test the Non-hierarchical Online Learning Community (NHOLC) Framework

The Non-Hierarchical Online Learning Community (NHOLC) conceptual framework was designed to leverage the understanding of sociocultural learning theory and community informatics to inform design principles for citizen science online learning communities that inspire online collaboration and local environmental action. The study presented here applies the NHOLC framework, using a Q-Sort methodology, to three online learning communities for citizens that were successful in fostering online collaboration and environmental actions. The findings of this paper provide tangible design principles that can be used to develop or revise online learning communities for citizen science instead of re-inventing the wheel for each newly emerging project

Digital frequency domain multiplexing readout electronics for the next generation of millimeter telescopes

Frequency domain multiplexing (fMux) is an established technique for the readout of transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers in millimeter-wavelength astrophysical instrumentation. In fMux, the signals from multiple detectors are read out on a single pair of wires reducing the total cryogenic thermal loading as well as the cold component complexity and cost of a system. The current digital fMux system, in use by POLARBEAR, EBEX, and the South Pole Telescope, is limited to a multiplexing factor of 16 by the dynamic range of the Superconducting Quantum Interference Device pre-amplifier and the total system bandwidth. Increased multiplexing is key for the next generation of large format TES cameras, such as SPT-3G and POLARBEAR2, which plan to have on the of order 15,000 detectors. Here, we present the next generation fMux readout, focusing on the warm electronics. In this system, the multiplexing factor increases to 64 channels per module (2 wires) while maintaining low noise levels and detector stability. This is achieved by increasing the system bandwidth, reducing the dynamic range requirements though active feedback, and digital synthesis of voltage biases with a novel polyphase filter algorithm. In addition, a version of the new fMux readout includes features such as low power consumption and radiation-hard components making it viable for future space-based millimeter telescopes such as the LiteBIRD satellite.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE Volume 9153. Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2014, conference 915

Toward a Sociocultural Learning Theory Framework to Designing Online learning Communities in Citizen Science

How can sociocultural learning theory inform design principles for citizen science online learning communities to inspire local environmental action? The purpose of this article is to identify themes in sociocultural learning theory that could inform the use and development of highly collaborative online learning communities that utilize community informatics tools for citizen science to enable on-the-ground environmental actions. Applying previously established socio-cultural theories provides an opportunity to build on what’s already known about how people learn and collaborate. Finally, this article explains how communities of practice theory, knowledge building theory, and place-based education theory can be woven together to create the basis for development of a conceptual framework

Fostering 21st Century Skills Through Autonomy Supportive Science Education Outside the Classroom

The development of 21st century skills in or rather through science teaching is on the agenda of many national and international school reforms aiming at creating so-called 21st century classrooms. In this context autonomous learning and practical relevance of science classes have been identified as important features, and education outside the classroom (EOtC) has been described as one way of providing such enriched classroom settings. We explore the relative importance of the four basic psychological needs (BPN), “perceived autonomy support”, “perceived competence support”, “student-teacher relatedness” and “student-student relatedness”, for the perceived practical relevance of the content (PRC) in science class in secondary school. We applied the same measures in normal and EOtC science classes, both in a short-term cross-sectional within-subject design study (A) and in a longitudinal between-subject design study (B). In order to account for the theoretical and empirical non-independence of the four BPN-explanatory variables, we used Bayesian ridge regression techniques. Our findings suggest that PRC in EOtC contexts is perceived higher than in normal classroom settings, both in the short-term as well as in the long-term designs. This can be best explained by the degree of perceived autonomy support by the students. In the short-term design, this holds true for both, the normal and the EOtC teaching contexts. In the long-term design, the relative importance of autonomy support can only be deemed statistically credible in the EOtC context. Perceived competence support and relatedness have no relative importance in the EOtC context. This suggests that science classes outside the classroom are less contingent on teacher-reliant or peer-related basic needs satisfaction. Thus, we can conclude that science teaching in EOtC fosters 21st century skills through more flexible, autonomous and collaborative settings and by being less teacher-centred.publishedVersio

Turning the King Tide: Understanding Dialogue and Principal Drivers in an Online Co-Created Investigation

Online learning communities for citizen science have been growing in number and scale in recent years. The 'WeatherBlur' project was designed to apply knowledge-building theory to a non-hierarchical online citizen science community for students in grades three to eight, their teachers, and scientists. This case study explores one investigation to determine the kinds of interactions that encouraged online knowledge-building and the individuals who served as the key drivers for the investigation. Posts from the project’s discussion board were analyzed via a discourse analysis. The results indicated that students, teachers, and scientists initiated online discourse at similar rates, affirming the project’s non-hierarchical design. Two knowledge-building constructs were used to initiate dialogue, including comments that added to the quantity and then quality of information in the conversation and those that included some conceptual advancement. Photos were also used more often to initiate rather than respond to conversation. By comparison, ongoing conversation was sustained by comments that enhanced the quality of information shared. Using activity log data, the results from a social network analysis indicated high variation in posting frequency, high probability of reciprocity, and dense core-periphery structure. Both the discourse analysis and social network analysis revealed multiple ways for individuals to become core to the network and thus primary drivers for the investigation. The findings are discussed in relation to knowledge-building in online citizen science communities

The Thermal Design, Characterization, and Performance of the SPIDER Long-Duration Balloon Cryostat

We describe the SPIDER flight cryostat, which is designed to cool six millimeter-wavelength telescopes during an Antarctic long-duration balloon flight. The cryostat, one of the largest to have flown on a stratospheric payload, uses liquid helium-4 to deliver cooling power to stages at 4.2 and 1.6 K. Stainless steel capillaries facilitate a high flow impedance connection between the main liquid helium tank and a smaller superfluid tank, allowing the latter to operate at 1.6 K as long as there is liquid in the 4.2 K main tank. Each telescope houses a closed cycle helium-3 adsorption refrigerator that further cools the focal planes down to 300 mK. Liquid helium vapor from the main tank is routed through heat exchangers that cool radiation shields, providing negative thermal feedback. The system performed successfully during a 17 day flight in the 2014-2015 Antarctic summer. The cryostat had a total hold time of 16.8 days, with 15.9 days occurring during flight.Comment: 15 pgs, 17 fig

Ultra High Energy Cosmology with POLARBEAR

Observations of the temperature anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) lend support to an inflationary origin of the universe, yet no direct evidence verifying inflation exists. Many current experiments are focussing on the CMB's polarization anisotropy, specifically its curl component (called "B-mode" polarization), which remains undetected. The inflationary paradigm predicts the existence of a primordial gravitational wave background that imprints a unique B-mode signature on the CMB's polarization at large angular scales. The CMB B-mode signal also encodes gravitational lensing information at smaller angular scales, bearing the imprint of cosmological large scale structures (LSS) which in turn may elucidate the properties of cosmological neutrinos. The quest for detection of these signals; each of which is orders of magnitude smaller than the CMB temperature anisotropy signal, has motivated the development of background-limited detectors with precise control of systematic effects. The POLARBEAR experiment is designed to perform a deep search for the signature of gravitational waves from inflation and to characterize lensing of the CMB by LSS. POLARBEAR is a 3.5 meter ground-based telescope with 3.8 arcminute angular resolution at 150 GHz. At the heart of the POLARBEAR receiver is an array featuring 1274 antenna-coupled superconducting transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers cooled to 0.25 Kelvin. POLARBEAR is designed to reach a tensor-to-scalar ratio of 0.025 after two years of observation -- more than an order of magnitude improvement over the current best results, which would test physics at energies near the GUT scale. POLARBEAR had an engineering run in the Inyo Mountains of Eastern California in 2010 and will begin observations in the Atacama Desert in Chile in 2011.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, DPF 2011 conference proceeding