From June 2025 through January 2026, we will facilitate an online working group of neurodivergent citizen scientists and allies. Together, we will brainstorm, create and publish accessibility guidelines to empower people with all kinds of brains to participate more comfortably in crowdsourced research.
We encourage you to join this new online working group if you:
have experience with online citizen science,
consider yourself neurodivergent or are a neurodiversity ally,
are 18 years old or older,
can communicate in basic written English,
interested in improving accessibility of citizen science for people with mental health and neurological conditions and differences,
can volunteer at least 2 hours of your time (online, flexible) before 16 January 2026.
Please note that, for this call, we welcome participants from all online citizen science projects, not only Zooniverse. All active contributors will be acknowledged in the resulting publication.
No special knowledge is needed. All work is virtual and asynchronous. We are looking forward to working with you all on this important cause!
With support from the Kavli Foundation, the Zooniverse team is launching a project to help us develop a set of recommendations for running Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-engaged projects on the Zooniverse platform.
The project will bring together subject matter experts, Zooniverse leadership, and platform participants in a series of workshops and working sessions.
The project deepens partnerships among Zooniverse and its participant community, as well as the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, UC-Berkeley Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, and the SkAI AI Astro Institute.
Zooniverse participants have an opportunity to get involved and follow along in a number of ways!
Developing recommendations for ML/AI projects on Zooniverse
As ML/AI has become more prevalent—now in about ⅓ of Zooniverse projects—it has sparked a range of reactions on the Talk message boards within the participant community, reflecting broader societal discourse. Zooniverse participants have surfaced concerns and insights on issues like ownership, agency, transparency, and trust. It is crucial to address the risks, opportunities, challenges, and broader ethical questions.
In response, we developed a project to create a set of recommendations for running ML/AI-engaged projects on the Zooniverse platform. In this project we will explore the tensions of integrating ML/AI within online public-engaged research. We hope that these recommendations will also be useful for related fields incorporating ML/AI in public-engaged research processes.
Collaborative workshops
With funding from The Kavli Foundation, this project will bring together Zooniverse leadership, platform participants, researchers, and experts in topics like communications, ethics, law, and ML/AI in a series of workshops and working sessions. The project deepens partnerships among Zooniverse and its participant community, as well as the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, UC-Berkeley Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, and the SkAI AI Astro Institute.
Workshop themes cover topics raised by Zooniverse participants and project research teams as well as gaps in existing knowledge, resources, and guidance.
Workshop 1 (June) will focus on Transparency and Communication Best Practices. It will inform guidelines that will support researchers in effectively communicating with participants when integrating ML/AI into their public-engaged research projects.
Workshop 2 (July) will cover Ethical Approaches to ML/AI. It will invite discussions that explore and identify foundational elements of an ethical approach to ML/AI-focused public-engaged research, addressing risks while leveraging opportunities.
Workshop 3 (August) will focus on Deepening Contextual Understanding. It will expand on the ethical considerations raised in Workshop 2 by examining a matrix of factors including disciplinary differences, task type affordances, and the varied needs of stakeholders (e.g., researchers, participants, platform maintainers). We anticipate that ethical principles may at times conflict within this matrix, making it essential to foster a shared understanding of how, why, and when we will draw from different elements as we develop these recommendations.
Workshop 4 (September) will consider Downstream Data Protection. It will inform recommendations for licensing frameworks to use with public-engaged research data outputs that align with platform values, particularly in relation to projects that incorporate ML/AI.
Call to action: We want you to participate!
Zooniverse participants have an opportunity to get involved and follow along in a number of ways:
1. Help shape the future of ML/AI and public-engaged research. Options include:
Complete four short surveys throughout the duration of the project, starting with this one.
Survey responses will be considered as we draft the recommendations for running ML/AI-engaged projects on the Zooniverse platform.
We’ll also be reaching out to a subset of our community about participating in the workshops.
2. Follow along:
We’ll be posting updates on Talk and on our Zooniverse blog during the process, and project results will be shared broadly.
We are looking for Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, which are jets of gas produced by newly-forming protostars. They are important because they can show us where stars are forming right now. HH objects are quite beautiful and rare – only about a thousand of them are known to exist!
How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research?
We are searching for HH objects in giant clouds of gas inside our galaxy using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile. The images produced by this camera are huge – 570 megapixels each – and are too big for a single person to look at. That’s where Zooniverse came in. We divided each image into smaller, 512×512, “cutouts” for people to search. We’ve completed the analysis and Zooniverse volunteers found 169 new HH objects! Considering only about 1200 were known to exist before this is a big increase.
What’s a surprising or fun fact about your research field?
Jets of gas occur in our universe on a wide range of scales. All of them are produced when gas is swirling around a central object. In the case of Herbig-Haro objects the jets are produced by gas moving around a protostar. These jets can extend over several light years. Jets are also produced by gas swirling around black holes. In quasars, these jets are powered by “supermassive” black holes and the jets produced can extend for several hundred thousand light years. What’s amazing is how similar all these jets are to each other despite the tremendous differences in size.
What first got you interested in research?
I first started doing research on quasar jets with Dr. David Hough when I was an undergraduate student at Trinity University.
What’s something people might not expect about your job or daily routine?
People often imagine that astronomers sit inside a dome every night looking through a telescope. In reality the telescopes we use have digital cameras and instruments that collect the data. Nowadays we can operate most telescopes remotely. So most of my research right now is done with telescopes in Chile that I can operate with my laptop computer from the comfort of my kitchen!
Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?
One of my hobbies is turning the data we get from our telescopes into color images. They’re a great way to share the beauty of the universe, and share the research that we do. I’ve been doing this for over 25 years now, and most of these images are available in the NOIRLab image gallery. Living in Alaska I love to do a wide range of outdoor activities, but my passion is for snow. In particular I love to cross-country ski.
What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?
It was a lot easier than I had imagined it would be to set up. Zooniverse is great about helping out, and beta testers also had a lot of important feedback. Once your project is up and running be prepared for a tsunami of enthusiastic volunteers who will have a lot of questions. We also had several volunteers to translate our project into other languages, which was great for increasing participation.
And finally…
Here’s one of our color images of one of the regions we studied looking for Herbig Haro objects (you can read more about this here).
A celestial shadow known as the Circinus West molecular cloud
As the U.S. Congress deliberates on next year’s budget, proposed 50% cuts to agencies like NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the deeply concerning layoffs at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), jeopardize the work of organizations like Zooniverse that rely on federal funding.
Although Zooniverse is an international collaboration, with core institutional partners in both the U.S. and the UK, this post focuses on the vital role that U.S. federal support has played in enabling our impact. As these funding decisions are made, we wanted to share how essential this support has been to Zooniverse’s impact on research and public engagement.
From the start, federal grants have been a cornerstone of Zooniverse’s ability to innovate and scale. A seed grant from the NSF in 2009 helped us explore the integration of machine learning with participatory science, work that laid the foundation for Zooniverse to become one of the world’s most sophisticated platforms for AI-enhanced crowdsourced research. A grant from IMLS advanced our Digital Humanities efforts, and a follow-on NEH grant enabled us to build critical infrastructure, like our ALICE system, for reviewing and editing transcriptions across humanities projects. Most recently, support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) enabled a new initiative to render three-dimensional subjects within Zooniverse, expanding the platform’s capabilities to advance biomedical research.
Federal support has also been instrumental in strengthening Zooniverse’s public impacts, from an NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) grant that led to the creation of classroom.zooniverse.org to an NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) grant that launched a multi-person Galaxy Zoo touch table exhibit at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. This hands-on experience reaches tens of thousands of visitors each year and often serves as the first entry point for children and their families into the world of participatory science.
Crucially, these federal grants don’t just fund abstract ideas or technologies, they fund people. Federal support helps pay the salaries of the software engineers, researchers, and participatory science professionals who build and maintain the Zooniverse platform, collaborate with research teams, and support our community of nearly 3 million volunteers.
Our current NASA grant, for example, enables over two dozen NASA research teams to unlock their datasets through Zooniverse and funds core platform maintenance efforts, an area of support notoriously difficult to secure. Our NASA grant also allowed us to respond directly to community needs through the implementation of new Group Engagement features and student service hours support, among the most requested tools from educators, classrooms, museums, and others using Zooniverse in group settings around the world.
Today, Zooniverse is part of the core infrastructure of research and scholarship. We partner with more than 150 research institutions and nearly 3 million volunteers worldwide. Our platform is a critical tool in the modern researcher’s toolkit, including in fields relying on human-in-the-loop AI methods to analyze vast datasets. At the same time, we are a trusted platform for public engagement, helping build confidence in science and fostering a sense of shared purpose across disciplines, borders, and backgrounds.
Like many research and public engagement organizations, Zooniverse has deeply benefitted from federal grant support. We felt it was important to share with our communities just how vital this support has been. Much of what we’ve built — our infrastructure, partnerships, and public-facing tools — would not have been possible without it. Continued federal investment remains critical to sustaining and growing this work.
We are incredibly grateful to the many individuals who volunteer through Zooniverse to fulfill service hour requirements for graduation, scholarships, and more. This is a fantastic way to meet your requirements while contributing to significant research and discoveries, helping teams worldwide better understand ourselves and the universe.
Below are instructions for participants (students), followed by instructions for Organization Leads supporting students in these efforts.
Instructions for Participants:
Step 1: Share this opportunity with your Organization
Contact your organization to see if participating in Zooniverse can fulfill your volunteering or other participation requirements. A good approach is to share this blog post with your organization so they understand what you will do and how you will document your participation. We strongly recommend checking with your organization before you start to ensure your efforts are recognized.
Step 2: Register at Zooniverse.org
Create a Zooniverse account by clicking ‘Register’ in the upper-right corner of the Zooniverse.org homepage. Only your name and email are captured, and we do not share email addresses outside of Zooniverse.
Note: Registration is not required to participate in Zooniverse, but it is useful in this case to create a volunteer certificate documenting the number of hours you spent classifying and the number of classifications you did. Volunteer certificates are often required documentation for service learning hours.
Step 3: Participate!
Dive into any project and start classifying! There are typically over 80 active projects listed at zooniverse.org/projects. You can filter by different disciplines (history, space, nature, climate, etc.) to find projects that align with your interests. Every project’s ‘classify’ page has a brief tutorial to guide you on what to do and how to do it.
Be sure to be logged in while you participate so that your stats and hours of participation are recorded and can be included in your certificate.
Step 4: Generate your Volunteer Certificate
Go to zooniverse.org, sign in, and click ‘More Stats’. Use the drop-down options on the upper-right of the stats bar cart to filter to a specific time period and/or project of interest. Then click on ‘Generate Volunteer Certificate’ (the button to the bottom-right of your stats bar chart).
Share your Certificate with your Organization. We’d love it if you continue participating!
By following these steps, you can fulfill your service hour requirements while making meaningful contributions to scientific research. Happy classifying!
For details on how hours are calculated, please see notes at the bottom of this post.
Instructions for Organization Leads:
Step 1: Get to know the Zooniverse
When sharing this opportunity with your volunteer community, we recommend emphasizing the benefits volunteers gain beyond just contributing time and classifications. Instead of creating busy work, encourage participants to reflect on how their efforts (and the community’s collective efforts) contribute to our understanding of the world and the broader universe.
Watch this brief introduction and video for more context about the Zooniverse, the world’s largest platform for people-powered research, with dozens of active projects and millions of participants worldwide.
Each Zooniverse project is led by a different research team, covering a wide range of subjects:
Share the instructions above for the simple steps on how to participate and generate a certificate.
If you need to reference a 501(c)(3): Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, one of the hosts of the Zooniverse Team, is a 501(c)(3). Organizations that need to link explicitly to a 501(c)(3) for their volunteering efforts use the Adler Planetarium as the reference. Documentation of the Adler Planetarium’s 501(c)(3) status is provided here. Note: Zooniverse is a program within Adler, Oxford, and the University of Minnesota; it is not a 501(c)3 of its own.
Step 3: Create a Group
If you’re interested in tracking your participants’ engagement, setting group goals, and more easily telling your story of collective impact, check out this blog post for details and instructions.
Step 4: Share your Stories of Impact with Us
We’d love to hear about your experience and share your stories of impact with the broader Zooniverse community to spark ideas and inspiration in others. See this Daily Zooniverse post as an example. Email us at contact@zooniverse.org with your stories, and don’t hesitate to email us if you have any questions or need additional information.
By following these steps, you can include Zooniverse in your volunteer opportunities and help your participants fulfill their service hour requirements while making meaningful contributions to scientific research. Thank you for including Zooniverse in your offerings!
How we calculate ‘Hours’ within Zooniverse Stats:
The hours displayed in the personal stats page are calculated based on the start and end times of your classification efforts. Hours posted there do not reflect time spent on Talk. Talk-based effort is deeply valued and important for Zooniverse projects – it’s where community is built and where many critical discoveries across the disciplines have been made. But within the scope of this phase of developing the new stats and group pages, we only built out views for hours spent classifying.
A little more detail on how the classification time is calculated. Over the years, Zooniverse has updated its infrastructure for robustness and sustainability. In 2015, we built and launched onto our current infrastructure, ‘Panoptes’, and its associated database. At that time in 2015, we started recording both the start and end times for each classification. This means that for all classifications 2015 and beyond, the calculation for time spent on each classification is a straightforward subtraction: finished_at – started_at. We then add up all these values to get the number of hours you’ve spent classifying.
When we made the choice to use the simple ‘finished_at – started_at’ we knew that that could lead to an overestimate of time spent classifying (i.e., you might step away from your computer after starting a classification and then come back to it later). We wanted to keep things as simple as possible and we didn’t want to make assumptions about what someone is doing during the time between ‘finished_at’ and ‘started_at’. We also preferred to err on the side of overestimating rather than underestimating – we’re just so grateful for people’s participation and want to celebrate that.
We do set a 3-hour cap on a single classification to mitigate the impact of ‘stepping away’ on the calculation of your stats. Volunteer tasks on Zooniverse vary widely in complexity—some are quick, like answering yes/no questions, while others, like detailed transcriptions, take more time. Analyzing classification durations across projects, we found that most average between 0–30 minutes, some exceed 30 minutes, with the longest averaging over 3 hours. We ran simulations testing different caps, from 15 minutes to 20 hours, discussed the findings, and decided on a 3-hour cap to fairly credit longer tasks while reducing the impact of idle time.
If you are required to list contact information:
If your program requires that you list contact information for the Zooniverse, please use the following:
Dr. Laura Trouille, Zooniverse Principal Investigator, Adler Planetarium, 1300 South DuSable Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, IL 60605, contact@zooniverse.org
Again, please keep in mind that we unfortunately do not have the capacity to fill out and/or sign individual forms. If your organization is not able to use the automatically generated signed Volunteer Certificate (see notes above), best to find an alternate volunteer opportunity.
I hadn’t even walked in the door yet, and walking up to my first day working at Adler Planetarium/Zooniverse was already one of the coolest places I’ve ever worked. The bus dropped me off, and because of the schedule, I arrived about 15 minutes early. I was extremely eager to begin this summer but decided to take a moment and sit on a bench close by to take in the beautiful view of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline. I had no idea what the summer was about to hold.
Why science communication?
I took a long, winding road to get to Adler/Zooniverse this summer, but the timing was perfect. I have always prioritized public engagement and science communication in my work, and it began in undergrad, where I was a tour guide and a teaching assistant. After graduation, I started working as a high school math teacher and presenting live science shows at the planetarium on the weekends. This combination of positions taught me how to do the seemingly impossible – get high schoolers excited about math. I brought my science communication training and the use of demos from the planetarium into the classroom to create an engaging environment. This led me to work as an instructor at a community college where I faced a different challenge – working with many varying backgrounds because most students came to my night class after working a long day job. I was teaching a math course with a supplemental lab where my focus was to get my students to build growth mindset skills, empowering them to succeed in my class. All these experiences led me to return to graduate school, where I continued to prioritize outreach, and I began the NASA-Zooniverse participatory science project Dark Energy Explorers. As project lead, this challenged me differently, acting as a liaison between highly specialized researchers and the general public.
While waiting to enter the building for the first time I took a walk around the whole planetarium only to be surprised with a glimpse of the Doane Observatory. Here, I paused for a first day picture to send to my family!
I say all of this because, before this summer, I felt like I was building all these skills out of sync and never in tandem. This summer at Adler/Zooniverse was the first time I truly had the opportunity to intertwine all these skills I’ve built over the years in one position while also gaining new skills from the experts here. I came to Adler/Zooniverse through the NSF Non-Academic Research Internships for Graduate Students (INTERN) for graduate students looking to grow a complementary skill set outside of an academic setting. Being a Zooniverse project lead and someone with an informal education background, coming to Adler/Zooniverse to focus on science communication skills was a perfect fit. Zooniverse PI, Laura Trouille, was my main mentor throughout the experience.
This summer, all of the projects I took on fell into the following modes of communication– written (articles, storybooks), spoken (talks, explanations), and visual (video, graphics, social media).
Networking and gaining skills
My first week, I was thrown right into filming for Adler’s social media’s ‘Ask an Astronomer’ segment. This might have been some of the most fun I had. I worked with other Adler astronomers, Mike Zevin and Geza Gyuk, to write answers to some of the most frequently asked questions in astronomy with an extra challenge of it could only be one minute long. We filmed with the marketing team Bella, Audrey, and Colleen, seen here, where we spent most of the filming perfecting a swivel chair spin. In addition to these videos for Adler social media, I also worked on a few posts for NASA Citizen Science and explored the Zooniverse social media revamp with Alisa Apreleva at Oxford University.
Continuing to work with Mike Zevin, I took on a project to develop a new way to incorporate Zooniverse into the Astronomy Conversations program at Adler. Astronomy Conversations is a program that hosts researchers and visiting scientists to engage with museum guests about their research. We discovered a way to use the space visualization lab to project a Zooniverse project and then use a project as a take-home activity for visitors. For instance, if a guest was particularly interested in asteroids, they classify on Asteroid Hunters in the SVL and then continue learning at home on their own on Zooniverse.
Before this summer, I had no video editing skills and barely knew how to use iMovie. With a tutorial from Laura, and design help from Zooniverse Designer Sean Miller, I put together a video for educators using the new Zooniverse Groups features. This video helps educators of all kinds (teachers, camp counselors, museum leads, librarians, etc.) to feel comfortable and confident using the new features in their education setting.
Becoming a ‘consultant astronomer’
My most novel experience was working with Adam Fotos (professor at Chicago State University) as a ‘consultant astronomer’ (I just made that title up). Adam contacted the team for advice for his new children’s book, Growing to the Moon. He wanted to ensure some of the book was rooted in actual astronomy concepts while still maintaining a fantastical, fun story. I agreed to help him tackle this task and then attended one of the planetarium shows at Adler, Imagine the Moon. Following this, we discussed incorporating those ideas into the plot line and how it could appeal to kids of varying ages. Look out for his book to be published soon!
Meeting with Adam to consult for the storybook, we watched the Imagine the Moon planetarium show amongst many other excited Adler visitors.
Communicating science accessibly
One of my most significant points of personal growth this summer has been in my science writing. My love for writing has taken a new perspective as I’ve been able to learn how to communicate my research on very niche astronomy topics, like dark energy or machine learning, for the general public. I was able to share part of my journey of choosing astronomy in the ‘working life’ section of Science Magazine, which culminated with my presentation of three posters and a talk at the International Astronomical Union Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa!
In addition to all the inspirational things that happened at work, I witnessed the auroras in the middle of Chicago off of North Ave pier, reflecting off Lake Michigan!
Place to learn and grow
After one of the most fullfilling summers of my life, I can reflect back to that first day after I walked through the door and Laura began showing me around the building. Along the way we ran into Adler President, Michelle Larson. The three of us had a lovely chat about how excited we were about what the summer would hold and how quickly it would go by. That was an understatement. In hindsight, that conversation was representative of the next few months. I witnessed the exceptional work environment these ladies (and the whole team!) have created here. They have made Adler and Zooniverse places where people come to learn and grow, not only as science enthusiasts but as people. In my experience, this is very rare to find. From the projects, to the people, to the place of Chicago, I spent this summer learning, laughing, and growing as a science communicator and a human. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this community through the NSF INTERN program, and I hope to continue collaborating with the Adler/Zooniverse team into the future!
The guest post was written by Lindsay R. House, a Science Communicator with Adler Planetarium and Zooniverse in Chicago from April to August 2024. Lindsay is the project lead for the NASA-Zooniverse participatory science project, Dark Energy Explorers. Lindsay spent this time at Adler on a supplemental National Science Foundation INTERN grant, which allowed her to gain valuable science communication skills that complement her studies as a 5th-year Astronomy Ph.D. student at the University of Texas Austin.
Over the years, one of the most common requests from educators has been for tools to support group engagement in Zooniverse and better tell your story of collective impact. We’re so grateful for a grant from NASA enabling us to build these new tools to meet those needs.
Whether you’re a library or museum educator, a camp counselor, or a classroom teacher, read on to discover how Zooniverse can enhance your educational goals.
Zooniverse is the world’s largest platform for people-powered research, with millions of participants and dozens of active projects across various disciplines. By using Zooniverse, you join a global network of educators offering students often their first opportunity to engage in real research. From classifying galaxies and tagging penguins to transcribing historic documents and marking the structure of cells for cancer research, Zooniverse projects span a wide array of research fields.
For a list of curricular resources for educators, including lesson plans, instructor guides, and more, check out zooniverse.org/get-involved/education.
Tracking Individual and Collective Impact
Zooniverse offers easy ways to track both individual and collective impact, making it easy to use in educational settings. You can assign tasks, motivate participation, set up friendly competitions between classes, and more.
Personal Stats
When logged into Zooniverse, each individual sees their own stats, including classification counts and hours spent. A valuable feature for fulfilling service hour requirements is the ability to generate a signed volunteer certificate.
Group Stats
Groups in Zooniverse can view their collective impact, set shared goals, and celebrate milestones. These tools empower educators to engage students in new ways.
Step 1: Create Your Group
Go to zooniverse.org, sign in, and scroll down to ‘My Groups’. Click ‘Create New Group.’ Name your group appropriately, such as “Hammond’s 4th Period Biology” or “Davis County Public Library.”
As the admin, you can decide if the group stats page will be publicly viewable or only accessible to group members. Additionally, you can choose whether to display individual stats or only aggregate results. For example, if your group stats page is public, you can set it so that only you can see individual stats, or you can allow other group members or everyone to see them. Through the admin pop-up, you can update your group settings or remove group members at any time.
For additional Group details/features, see this blog post.
Step 2: Invite Participants to Join Your Group
Have your students or program participants create a Zooniverse account by clicking ‘Register’ in the upper-right corner of zooniverse.org. To invite them to join your group, click the ‘Copy Join Link’ on your group’s page and share it via email or other preferred means, such as creating a QR code.
Once they click the join link, all classifications they do on any Zooniverse project will be included in your group stats page, contributing to your group’s collective impact.
Step 3: View/Share Your Group Stats
When viewing your group stats page, you can use the drop-down options on the upper-right of the stats bar chart to filter to a specific time period and/or project of interest. Another helpful feature is the ‘See detailed stats’ option, where you can view all group contributors’ stats and generate a .CSV file for further analysis. A future feature will be the ability to filter to specific time periods within this detailed stats page.
Members of your group will also be able to view the group stats page. Depending on the choices you’ve made in the admin settings, group members will either be able to only view the aggregate stats OR they’ll be able to view both the aggregate and individual stats.
If you’ve 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.
Celebrating Milestones
A few Zooniverse project teams have created short thank you videos, which are great rewards to share with your students after reaching a collective milestone.
Example: STEM Club at a Public Library
Imagine you lead a STEM club at your local public library. You create a group, set the settings to public but only for aggregate results (i.e, not showing individual stats publicly), copy the join link, and share it with your group members. You set a classification challenge for the week, share recommended projects (see zooniverse.org/projects for the full list), and encourage free choice. Throughout the week, you update your group on progress toward your goal. At your next meeting, you celebrate reaching the goal with a thank you video and highlight top contributors with special rewards. Then, you set the next week’s challenge to keep the momentum going.
Other Use Cases
Friendly competition among class periods
Extra credit opportunities for your students
Extension activity after a museum field trip experience
Summer camp group tracking independent research time
Share your Stories of Impact with Us
We’d love to hear about your experience and share your stories of impact with the broader Zooniverse community to spark ideas and inspiration in others. See this Daily Zooniverse post as an example. Email us at contact@zooniverse.org with your stories!
Get in Touch
If you have questions or need advice, join the conversation in our dedicated Talk discussion forum around Education and the Zooniverse or email us at contact@zooniverse.org.
On behalf of Zooniverse, we are incredibly grateful that you choose to use participatory science in your educational programs and hope to continue fostering this innovative community of educators around the world.
Thank you for including Zooniverse in your educational efforts!
At the Zooniverse, we strive to foster a vibrant community of software engineers, researchers, and public 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!
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.
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.
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.
*Corporate Groups
If you are a corporate group interested in including Zooniverse in your digital engagement and volunteering efforts, please see this blog post and email us at contact@zooniverse.org to learn more about our Zooniverse Corporate Partnership Program. Access to the Groups feature is available to corporate partners as part of our partnership levels.
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.
Guest post written by Monteé Ellis, Junior Designer with the Zooniverse team at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago from May – July 2024. Before joining the Zooniverse team, Monteé embarked on an incredible journey as an intern with i.c.stars. This rigorous 4-month program wasn’t just about learning IT and software engineering skills; it was a comprehensive experience designed to open doors to economic mobility. Monteé gained invaluable job experience and honed his leadership abilities, setting the stage for his future success. After his role within the Zooniverse, Monteé will join the United Airlines Apprenticeship Program.
Starting something new is always exciting. The same was true when I got the opportunity to work for the Zooniverse at Adler Planetarium as a Junior Designer. I had some background in graphic design, having previously owned a clothing brand, but UI/UX design was an entirely different ballgame. I found myself using the same creative muscles but with a fresh focus on putting myself in the user’s shoes. This experience has truly broadened my perspective and deepened my passion for creating meaningful, user-centered designs.
Growing up, I was fascinated by space. My frequent visits to the Adler Planetarium as a kid fueled this passion. So, when the opportunity arose to contribute to something as significant as Zooniverse while working at one of my favorite childhood museums, it truly felt like a dream come true. I am forever grateful for this incredible experience and the chance to give back to a place that inspired my love for the cosmos.
The Zooniverse team created an incredible environment where I could learn, grow, and truly be myself. Working on this project has not only enhanced my portfolio but also provided me with invaluable knowledge and experience. This opportunity has set me up for future success and opened doors that I never thought possible.
This is the second time the Zooniverse team has accepted interns from the i.c.stars organization, and this year, they welcomed two of us instead of just one. This decision significantly impacted the success of our project. Having my teammate and friend, Yumi Sato, by my side allowed us to bounce ideas off each other, enhancing our overall creativity. Our shared experience and countless hours spent together at i.c.stars made the transition to the Zooniverse team seamless. Our strong repertoire and collaborative spirit were instrumental in the smooth execution of this project.
The transition from i.c.stars to the Zooniverse team was different but incredibly refreshing. Shifting from the front-end and back-end coding of our Pfizer project to focusing on UI/UX design for Adler was exactly what I needed for my career. This change provided a new perspective and helped me grow in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
As I embarked on this UI/UX design journey with Zooniverse, my thought process was deeply rooted in empathy and user experience. My goal was to create intuitive and engaging interfaces that not only meet the users’ needs but also enhance their interaction with the platform. I immersed myself in user research, gathering insights and feedback to understand the challenges and preferences of our audience. This informed my design decisions and allowed me to craft solutions that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Collaborating with Yumi, I learned the importance of iterative design and the value of constructive feedback, which were crucial in refining our project and delivering a polished final product.
I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Laura Trouille, Zooniverse PI and Adler VP of Science Engagement, and Sean Miller, Senior Zooniverse Designer, for their incredible support throughout my time on the team. Laura created a fantastic environment and assembled an outstanding team that made every day a joy. Sean, with his exceptional mentorship, took us step by step through the intricacies of UI/UX design, guiding us through each aspect of the project and helping our ideas come to life. Their combined efforts made this experience truly unforgettable.
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