Project 2577: M. A. O’Leary, K. Alphonse, A. H. Mariangeles, D. Cavaliere, A. Cirranello, T. G. Dietterich, M. Julius, S. Kaufman, E. Law, M. Passarotti, A. Reft, J. Robalino, N. B. Simmons, S. Y. Smith, D. W. Stevenson, E. Theriot, P. M. Velazco, R. L. Walls, M. Yu, M. Daly. 2018. Crowds Replicate Performance of Scientific Experts Scoring Phylogenetic Matrices of Phenotypes. Systematic Biology. 67 (1):49-60.
Abstract
Scientists building the Tree of Life face an overwhelming challenge to categorize phenotypes (e.g., anatomy, physiology) from millions of living and fossil species. This biodiversity challenge far outstrips the capacities of trained scientific experts. Here we explore whether crowdsourcing can be used to collect matrix data on a large scale with the participation of the non-expert students, or “citizen scientists.” Crowdsourcing, or data collection by non-experts, frequently via the internet, has enabled scientists to tackle some large-scale data collection challenges too massive for individuals or scientific teams alone. The quality of work by non-expert crowds is, however, often questioned and little data has been collected on how such crowds perform on complex tasks such as phylogenetic character coding. We studied a crowd of over 600 non-experts, and found that they could use images to identify anatomical similarity (hypotheses of homology) with an average accuracy of 82% compared to scores provided by experts in the field. This performance pattern held across the Tree of Life, from protists to vertebrates. We introduce a procedure that predicts the difficulty of each character and that can be used to assign harder characters to experts and easier characters to a non-expert crowd for scoring. We test this procedure in a controlled experiment comparing crowd scores to those of experts and show that crowds can produce matrices with over 90% of cells scored correctly while reducing the number of cells to be scored by experts by 50%. Preparation time, including image collection and processing, for a crowdsourcing experiment is significant, and does not currently save time of scientific experts overall. However, if innovations in automation or robotics can reduce such effort, then large-scale implementation of our method could greatly increase the collective scientific knowledge of species phenotypes for phylogenetic tree building. For the field of crowdsourcing, we provide a rare study with ground truth, or an experimental control that many studies lack, and contribute new methods on how to coordinate the work of experts and non-experts. We show that there are important instances in which crowd consensus is not a good proxy for correctness.Read the article »
Article DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/syx052
Project DOI: 10.7934/P2577, http://dx.doi.org/10.7934/P2577
This project contains | Matrices |
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Download Project SDD File ![]() | Total scored cells: 140 Total media associated with cells: 122 Total labels associated with cell media: 148 |
Characters | |
Total characters: 20 Total characters with associated media: 20 Total characters with media with labels: 0 Total character states: 55 Total character states with associated media: 52 Total character states with media with labels:0 Total unordered/ordered characters:20/0 |
Currently Viewing:
MorphoBank Project 2577
MorphoBank Project 2577
- Creation Date:
21 December 2016 - Publication Date:
30 May 2017 - Project views: 32699
- Matrix downloads: 11
This research
supported by
Authors' Institutions
- Ohio State University
- Oregon State University
- University of Arizona
- University of Michigan
- University of Texas at Austin
- University of Waterloo
- American Museum of Natural History
- Drexel University
- Kenx Technology Inc
- New York Botanical Garden
- St. Cloud State University
- Stony Brook University
- Whirl-i-gig
- College of William and Mary
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Members
member name | taxa ![]() |
specimens ![]() |
media ![]() | chars ![]() | character
| cell scorings (scored, NPA, "-") | cell
| rules ![]() | ||||||
Andrea Cirranello Project Administrator | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Maureen O'Leary Full membership ![]() | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Nancy Simmons Full membership ![]() | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Paul Velazco Full membership ![]() | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Taxonomic Overview for Matrix 'M24371' (6 Taxa)
taxon | unscored cells |
scored cells ![]() |
no cell support ![]() |
NPA cells |
"-" cells | cell images | labels on cell images |
member access |
[1] Cynopterus sphinx Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 22 | none |
[2] Saccopteryx bilineata Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 25 | none |
[3] Trachops cirrhosus Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 25 | none |
[4] Kerivoula hardwickii Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 27 | none |
[5] Miniopterus schrebersii Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 26 | none |
[6] Erinaceus europaeus Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 23 | none |
Project views 
type | number of views | Individual items viewed (where applicable) |
Total project views | 32699 | |
Project overview | 1573 | |
Matrix views | 674 | Matrix landing page (614 views); Bat Skull Matrix (60 views); |
Media views | 19786 | Media search (1606 views); M435071 (204 views); M435131 (172 views); M435137 (170 views); M435118 (153 views); M435083 (220 views); M435129 (171 views); M435095 (185 views); M435084 (190 views); M435053 (209 views); M435086 (211 views); M435107 (165 views); M435135 (164 views); M435141 (163 views); M435127 (172 views); M435113 (165 views); M435054 (215 views); M435064 (226 views); M435146 (178 views); M435124 (198 views); M435136 (167 views); M435089 (192 views); M435076 (202 views); M435085 (230 views); M435058 (227 views); M435068 (211 views); M435057 (211 views); M435106 (174 views); M435130 (182 views); M435104 (189 views); M435087 (246 views); M435116 (159 views); M435122 (176 views); M435142 (174 views); M435088 (222 views); M435060 (208 views); M435133 (167 views); M435070 (218 views); M435072 (226 views); M435063 (181 views); M435145 (162 views); M435081 (215 views); M435069 (223 views); M435138 (178 views); M435126 (158 views); M435147 (169 views); M435056 (245 views); M435108 (170 views); M435140 (164 views); M435091 (214 views); M435062 (202 views); M435111 (170 views); M435143 (171 views); M435082 (209 views); M435094 (182 views); M435080 (196 views); M435128 (174 views); M435059 (216 views); M435066 (214 views); M435125 (160 views); M435144 (183 views); M435067 (191 views); M435114 (202 views); M435061 (225 views); M435109 (167 views); M435090 (185 views); M435134 (179 views); M435077 (183 views); M435098 (184 views); M435123 (150 views); M435100 (182 views); M435119 (164 views); M435115 (174 views); M435096 (176 views); M435078 (205 views); M435074 (185 views); M435105 (173 views); M435112 (216 views); M435097 (181 views); M435148 (174 views); M435110 (195 views); M435055 (237 views); M435099 (185 views); M435093 (208 views); M435065 (211 views); M435121 (172 views); M435073 (189 views); M435132 (166 views); M435102 (190 views); M435092 (194 views); M435075 (199 views); M435120 (176 views); M435101 (193 views); M435117 (172 views); M435079 (205 views); M435139 (157 views); M435103 (167 views); |
Taxon list | 3595 | |
Specimen list | 4494 | |
Views for media list | 573 | |
Documents list | 563 | |
Bibliography | 1441 |
Project downloads 
type | number of downloads | Individual items downloaded (where applicable) |
Total downloads from project | 177 | |
Project downloads | 164 | |
Matrix downloads | 11 | Bat Skull Matrix (11 downloads); |
Document downloads | 2 | Supplementary material (2 downloads); |