Crowdsourcing rare events: Using curiosity to draw participants into science and early warning systems

Andrea H. Tapia, Nicolas LaLone, Elizabeth MacDonald, Reid Priedhorsky, Michelle Hall

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

This research presents a centralized boundary object website and mobile app focused on allowing participants to participate in developing an early warning system through space weather and the beauty of the aurora borealis. Because of the beauty and majesty of auroral activity, people will seek information about when and where these unpredictable events occur. This activity, commonly referred to as nowcasting, can be combined with scientific data collected from observatories and satellites and serve as an early warning system with potentially far greater accuracy and timeliness than the current state of the art. We believe that long-term engagement with a citizen science tool will help bridge the many social worlds surrounding the aurora borealis and lead to the development of an early warning system that may correlate the visibility of the northern lights to violent space weather. We hope this will lead to other real time crowdsourced early warning systems in the future.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationISCRAM 2014 Conference Proceedings - 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management
PublisherThe Pennsylvania State University
Pages135-144
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9780692211946
StatePublished - 2014
Event11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM 2014 - University Park, PA, United States
Duration: May 1 2014May 1 2014

Publication series

NameISCRAM 2014 Conference Proceedings - 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management

Other

Other11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityUniversity Park, PA
Period5/1/145/1/14

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Information Systems

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