Developing a web interface to engage citizen scientists with lake sensor data

David Richardson, Barbara Benson, Kenneth Chiu, June Fichter, Kathie Weathers, and Ann Zimmerman

1,655 ha

oligotrophic lake

Lake Depth: average 11+m

Watershed Area:122 sq. km

79% forested6% transportation/developed

Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, USA

Engaging Citizensin Science, and Scientists

in Citizen-Relevant Research

and Monitoring Results

The Lake Sunapee Protective Association(LSPA)

100+-year old associationvolunteers

4.5 paid staff350K annual budgetoutreach, education

Focus: preserving and enhancing environmental quality of Lake Sunapee

watershed and beyond

Photos: m. g. eliassen

CI-TEAM Project

Funding: US National Science Foundation

CI-TEAM = Cyberinfrastructure

Training, Education, Advancement, and Mentoring

CI-TEAM Project

Funding: US National Science Foundation

co-create a web interface with citizen scientists to present real-time and archived lake buoy data to the

lay public in accessible forms

Ecosystem Science

Computer science/Info

management

Human-computer/data

interaction

Kathie WeathersDavid Richardson

Ken ChiuChaitali Pandit

Ann ZimmermanArcher Batcheller

Barbara Benson

CI-TEAM

Citizen ScienceJune Fichter and

Lake Sunapee Protective Association

Participatory Design

– A philosophy and a process that involves potential users in design development of a product or technology

– Concerned with usefulness and usability

– Workshops with citizen-scientists (LSPA members, K-12 teachers, pre-service teachers) to co-design

User-design process

photo: K. Cappillino

Buoy interface – how does it all work?

Web user interface

Database connection

Citizen scientist/User

Software

Connecting users to sensor data

Buoy Data Level 1 - Current data

Buoy Data Level 2 - Prepackaged graphs

Buoy Data Level 3 - User selects data and display

Web user interface

Increasing data complexity and

user interpretation

Level 1

Level 1

Level 2

Dissolved oxygen (grey bars are night)

Level 3Level 3Level 3

• An RDF ontology written in the Web Ontology Language framework (OWL)

• Describes and configures the components of the website

• Source code itself to be site-independent

Reusability and Configurability

Looking for partners

• Would this be helpful for your organization and outreach?

• What technical support is needed?

•What else would help extend the interface?

•Could you involve the citizen scientists from your location?

• (Workshop Friday at Trout Lake)

CI Design Team

Binghamton University

Chaitali Pandit

Sandesh Krishnan

Rui Wang

Thanks

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Colin Burreson

Josh Oakgrove

NSF OCI: #0753310

LSPA: Woody, Kathleen, Sue

PhotosMidge Eliassen and Kat Cappillino

Workshop participants