Zooniverse

Zooniverse is a web-based platform that enables public participation in scientific research. Through a collection of online projects, volunteers contribute by performing tasks such as classifying astronomical images, transcribing historical texts, or tagging ecological data. The platform aggregates the collective effort of volunteers to generate scientific data and insights that would be impractical for small research teams to obtain alone.

Zooniverse originated in the late 2000s from Galaxy Zoo, a citizen science project at the University of Oxford led by researchers including Chris Lintott. The success of Galaxy Zoo inspired the development of a general-purpose platform for hosting additional citizen science projects across disciplines. Since then, Zooniverse has grown to host hundreds of projects spanning astronomy, biology, climate science, and the humanities, involving millions of volunteers worldwide.

Researchers who run projects on Zooniverse design tasks suitable for non-experts and implement quality-control measures such as multiple independent classifications and calibration steps. Data produced are often used in peer-reviewed studies, and findings may feed back into ongoing surveys, databases, or educational materials. The platform emphasizes open science and public engagement.

Governance and operation are provided by the Zooniverse organization, a collaborative effort among participating institutions. The project is supported by grants and nonprofit funding and is widely used by educators and researchers as a scalable way to involve the public in data analysis and discovery.