Phil's comments on the conclusions

[drphilmarshall]

Hi all!

I'm sorry I missed the meeting, but it looks like this is going to be a very interesting and valuable document. I have some comments on the conclusions that hopefully will help with the rest of the paper (or at least make interesting reading! :-)

Best wishes,

Phil

• In conclusions 3 and 7, citizen science is described as "useful" and "a tool". I think CS is best described instead as a methodology, since citizen science IS science. Describing it as a tool implies that we are using it to achieve an end, and one might wrongly infer from that that we are also using the citizen scientists. This is not the case: we are collaborating with them!
• Conclusion 6a: while I agree that the typical interface used by astronomers is not necessarily best for volunteers, can we not claim that designing interfaces for both astronomers AND volunteers is going to be the best strategy? The problem with restricting citizen science to simple custom interfaces is that it makes it harder for citizens to graduate to more free-form investigation, while on the astronomer side, the good design of citizen-friendly interfaces should reduce the training time for starting professionals too...
• Conclusion 10's mention of a shop window reminded me of a recent thought about how the EPO efforts of scientists and their project teams can be usefully thought of as advertising to attract more citizens to come and contribute to the science. I like to think of EPO teams as HR departments! This thought is useful because it highlights the distinction between citizen science and outreach: outreach is what you do to engage citizens who might become citizen scientists.