September | 2024 | Zooniverse

At the Zooniverse, we strive to foster a vibrant community of software engineers, researchers, and everyday participants. Each week the Zooniverse volunteer community contributes over 1 million classifications across ~80 active projects. This collective effort has contributed to hundreds of publications. Many of you have experienced first-hand or heard about serendipitous discoveries through Talk or by reading a project’s results page. Your contributions make a real difference in advancing scientific research and discovery worldwide.

To further encourage and support this sense of collective effort leading to discovery, we’re exploring additional pathways for people to connect. With newly implemented Group Engagement features, like-minded participants can connect, collaborate on projects, and work together toward shared goals.

We can’t wait to see the creative ways our community will make the most of this new Groups feature!

Introducing the new Zooniverse Groups community-building pages.

WHAT IS IT?

With the new Groups feature, you will be able to track collaborative achievements with friends and family, fellow science enthusiasts, educational groups, and more within the Zooniverse community. Track your stats and see which projects trend within your group.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Creating a Group

Once you’re logged in to Zooniverse, you can select ‘Create New Group’ from the ‘My Groups’ panel in the zooniverse.org homepage. By creating a new group you are the admin of the group.

First, name your group. You can use any combination of characters including special characters and emojis. Next, select your group permissions. The private selection will only allow group members to access and view your group’s stats page. The public selection will make the group stats page viewable by anyone. Then, choose your members’ individual stats visibility. You can choose whether to never show each contributor’s stats, always show them, or only show them to members of the group. A group admin will always see these individual stats. Finally, click “Create New Group”. You will be brought to your new group stats page where you can then copy the join link and invite members. More on joining a Group below.

Using the Bar Chart

From the homepage click on any of your groups to view that group’s stats page. The bar chart will default to showing your stats for all contributors for all projects from the last 7 days.

To change the time range or projects use the dropdown menus above the chart. Note that if you change the dates, it will also change which projects are selectable based on your activity in that time period. The Hours tab shows a summary of the time spent across your group classifying subjects.

Top Projects

These are your most classified projects for the selected time period. If you change the time frame, you can expect your top projects to update as well.

Top Contributors

Next is a list of top contributors (group members with the most classifications during the specified time period). You can see a more detailed view if you click ‘See all contributors and detailed stats’. This will bring you to a full list of contributors and their stats across all time. Clicking ‘Export all stats’ generates a .csv file. A future feature will be the ability to filter to specific time periods within this detailed stats page.

Showing all Zooniverse Groups participants' stats.

Managing a Group

From the homepage click on any of your groups to view your group’s stats page. If you’re the admin for a group, you’ll have a ‘Manage Group’ option at the top of the group’s stats page. When you click on ‘Manage Group’, you will see the same settings as when you first created the group. You can change these admin settings at any time. You will also be able to manage the members of your group. Navigate to a member’s row and click on the 3-dot options menu. Here you can give admin access, remove admin access (if previously given), or remove a member. Note: as long as someone has a ‘Join Link’, they can always rejoin the group at any time. Press “Save changes” to return to your group.

If you click ‘Deactivate Group’, this removes the group and its stats’ visibility (making the group unsearchable and unjoinable). Note: this does not delete the group from our internal Zooniverse database.

Joining a Group

In order to join a group, the group admin or a group member will share the ‘Join Link’ for that group with you. The ‘Join Link’ is at the top of the group’s stats page.

Once you have the link, simply click it to be added to the group. Note: you must be logged-in in order to join a group. Once you’ve joined, you’ll immediately be able to view your group’s stats page.

At any time, you can view all of your groups by clicking ‘See all’ within the ‘My Groups’ panel in your zooniverse.org homepage.

You may notice a few existing groups with alphanumeric names (e.g., 597C5881-3808-4DF7-B91A-D29E58E19FFC) in your groups list. These groups were created via our classroom.zooniverse.org portal for curricula such as Wildcam Labs or Galaxy Zoo 101. If you’re the group admin (indicated by the ‘admin’ label), you can click ‘Manage Group’ to give your group a more descriptive name. If you’re a group member, you can either click ‘Leave Group’ (if the class experience is complete) or ask your instructor (the admin) to rename the group. In future updates, we’ll enable naming groups directly within the classroom.zooniverse experiences.

Leaving a Group

From the homepage click on any of your groups. At the top of the group’s stats page, click ‘Leave group’. Note: you can rejoin a group at any time as long as you still have access to the unique Join Link.

Sharing a Group

If the admin of your group has set your group visibility settings to ‘public’, you’ll have the ‘Share Group’ option at the top of your group’s stats page. Clicking ‘Share group’ will copy a link to the public-facing view of your group’s stats page. This is different from a ‘Join Link’. Anyone with the ‘Share Group’ link will simply be able to view the group’s stats, but will not be added as a member of the group.

UPD: Example of a Group

In November 2024 we interviewed members of PSR J0737-3039 – a Zooniverse group focused on space projects – to learn why and how Zooniverse contributors use this feature. Read the full interview.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

We value your feedback! We’re keen to hear about your experiences with the new Groups feature. Please share in this Talk thread and mention @support if you are experiencing any issues.

The Zooniverse has come a long way since beginning our journey together in 2009 – from the launch of the Project Builder to supporting diverse task types across the disciplines, including transcription, tagging, and marking. This fall, we’re continuing our frontend codebase migration and design evolution with a fresh, modern redesign to some of our main pages – this update focuses on freshening up our homepage.

What’s New?

Your Stats: Now, you can more easily track your progress and goals. See all your classification stats on one page and filter by project or time frame.
Volunteer Recognition: We heard you! Create personalized volunteer certificates right on the homepage. Perfect for students needing proof of volunteer hours!
Group Engagement: Create your group, set up goals and see the impact you’re making together. Great for families, teams, classrooms, or friends working on projects together.
Easy Navigation: Click the Zooniverse logo in the upper-left corner of any page to return to your homepage easily.

Read on for more details.

The zooniverse.org homepage serves a broad audience of new and returning volunteers, educators, and researchers. We believe the homepage should be a central hub where these different audiences can find the tools they need to make their Zooniverse experience satisfying and worthwhile. Now you’ll be able to pick up where you left off classifying, see your stats at a glance, and follow up on your last classifications to add them to a collection, favorite, or comment.

A common request over the years has been better tools for capturing individual and group impact. Thanks to support from NASA, we’ve been working hard to implement improved personal stats and new features that allow you to see the collective impact of your groups – whether you’re a family, a corporate team, a classroom, or simply a group of friends passionate about participating in projects together. We’ve made significant strides in bringing these functionalities to life.

Key features of your new homepage:

Personalized Statistics: We’re making it a little easier to keep track of your progress and goals. Now all of your real-time classification stats can be found on one page and you can filter by project or by a specific time frame. Access detailed information about your contributions, including the number of classifications, projects you’ve worked on, and your impact over time.

A foundational step in this effort was a complete overhaul of our stats infrastructure to ensure greater reliability and stability. Moving forward, zooniverse.org personal stats will pull data exclusively from our updated stats server, reflecting contributions from 2007 onwards.

Volunteer Recognition: Generate personalized volunteer certificates right from your Zooniverse homepage! Customizable to specific time periods and projects. An often requested feature for students fulfilling volunteer service hour requirements.

Group Engagement: A new way to create and share group goals and tell the story of your collective impact. Read this blog post for more details.

Streamlined Navigation: Enjoy an easier flow by clicking the Zooniverse logo in the upper-left on any page to return to your homepage.

We value your feedback! We launched the new homepage in September of 2024. If you encounter any difficulties or have questions as you’re using the new homepage, please share them in this Talk thread and mention @support.