Could you crowdsource? E āhei rānei i a koe te rōpūmātāpuna?
[November 2010] A group of volunteers. Do you remember when you used to send out printed newsletters? You'd get together a group of people around a table, they'd pick up one sheet of paper from each of half a dozen stacks, staple them and add the collated sheets to a pile.
Then one or more people would fold each newsletter, and either put it in an envelope or just label it and add a stamp. Then someone would take them all down to the post office.
This is an example of something that is now called crowdsourcing: a group of volunteers all contribute a small piece to a larger task.
While it's easy to understand the idea of getting a group of people together to work with physical objects, it can be harder to see how to apply the principle to the world of computers and files.
There are some interesting examples around though. One of them is the Old Weather project.
Help scientists recover worldwide weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I. These transcriptions will contribute to climate model projections and improve a database of weather extremes. Historians will use your work to track past ship movements and the stories of the people on board.
He rōpū kaitūao
E maumahara ana koe ki te wā i tuku atu tānga kawerongo e koe? I whakaemi e koe he rōpū tāngata huri noa i tētahi tēpu, ka tangoe rātou tētahi whārangi i ia o ngā putunga e ono, ka tēparatia, ka makaia ngā whārangi whakaraupapa ki tētahi putunga. Kātahi ka pōkaitia ia kawerongo e tētahi tangata neke atu rānei, ka kōpakitia, ka hoatu tapanga rānei me te tāpiri pane kuini. Nā ka mauria katoatia e tētahi ki te poutāpeta.
He tauira tēnei o te mea e kīia nei ināianei ko te rōpūmātāpuna: he rōpū kaitūao e takoha katoa ana he wāhi iti ki tētahi tūmahi nui ake.
Ahakoa he ngāwari te mātau ki te ariā o te whakaeminga tāngata ki te mahi me ngā rawa ōkiko, he uaua ake pea te kite kia pēhea tēnei mātāpono e mahi ai i te ao o te rorohiko me te kōnae.
Heoi kei waho rā ētahi tauira whaitake. Ko tētahi o ēnei ko te Old Weather project.
Āwhinatia ngā tohunga pūtaiao ki te tiki anō i ngā mātakinga huarere i mahia e ngā kaipuke o te Tāruru Roera i te wā o te Pakanga Tuatahi o te Ao. Ka takoha ēnei tuhinga kōrero ki ngā matapaetanga tauira huarere me te whakapai ake i te pātengi raraunga o ngā pāpono huarere taikaha. Ka whakamahia āu mahi e ngā tumu kōrero o mua ki te taki i ngā nekeneke o ngā kaipuke o mua me ngā kōrero mō ngā tāngata i runga i aua kaipuke.
The computer problem
The organisation running this project has a large number of handwritten log books. These logbooks record details from ships that were travelling the globe. They include important information about the weather, tides, and their location.
The problem is, that these books exist on paper, but scientists would be able to gather a great deal of very important information if only the data they contain were digital.
Because of the variability of handwriting it's not possible to just scan the books in and use optical character recognition.
Te raruraru rorohiko
He nui tonu ngā pukapuka rangitaki tuhi ā-ringa kei a te whakahaere e mahi ana i tēnei kaupapa. E pūkete ana ki ēnei pukarangitaki ngā taipitopito o ngā kaipuke i tāwhe haere i te ao. Kei a rātou ngā mōhiohio hira mō te huarere, ngā tai, me tō rātou tauwāhi.
Ko te raruraru, kei runga pepa ēnei pukapuka, engari e taea e ngā tohunga pūtaiao te kohikohi i ngā mōhiohio tino hiranga mehemea he mea mamati ō rātou raraunga.
Nā te tino rerekētanga o ngā tuhi ā-ringa tē taea te uru ā-matawai noa ngā pukapuka me te whakamahi i te āhuka pūāhua ōmata.
The human solution
So what the team have done instead is to scan in the log books and ask humans to do the optical character recognition. By using some very clever software, volunteer members of the public can identify the information needed from each page and type it in on a web page.
The software presents each scanned page to a number of people. That allows for error checking and makes it very difficult for one rogue idiot to deliberately poison the results with incorrect information.
As of October 2010 the project is 5% complete, and more than 66,000 pages have been logged thanks to virtual volunteers.
Take a look at the Old Weather project. Does it give you any ideas for something your organisation could do?
By the way, if ships logs don't interest you, then there are also projects to explore the Moon and classify galaxies. All are under the umbrella of Zooniverse.
Te rongoā tāngata
Nā wai kua anga kē te kapa ki te matawai i ngā puka rangitaki me te tono tāngata ki te mahi i te āhuka pūāhua ōmata. Mā te whakamahi i ētahi pūmanawa tino atamai, e āhei ana ngā kaitūao o te iwi whānui te tāutu i ngā mōhiohio ka hiahiatia i ia whārangi me te pātuhi ki tētahi whārangi tukutuku.
Ka tāpaetia e te pūmanawa ia whārangi matawai ki ētahi tāngata. Mā konei ka tukua te whakatikanga hapa, ka meinga hoki hei mahi uaua mō tētahi taurekareka nauhea te paihana i ngā huanga mā te mōhiohio tinihanga.
Mai o Whiringa-ā-nuku 2010 kua oti 5% te kaupapa, ā, neke atu i te 66,000 ngā whārangi kua oti te rangitaki nā te mahi a ēnei kaitūao māriko.
Tirohia te Old Weather project. E homai ana rānei i ētahi whakaaro ki a koe mō tētahi mea ka āhei tō whakahaere te mahi?
Otiia, ki te kore ngā rangitaki kaipuke e pai ki a koe, kāti kei reira anō ētahi kaupapa hei torotoro i te Marama me te whakarōpū i ngā ikarangi. Kei raro katoa ēnei i te hāmarara o Zooniverse.
Panui tips contributed by Miraz Jordan, http://knowit.co.nz . Need help or advice about the Internet? Contact Miraz. Miraz also writes the Tech Universe column for the NZ Herald - it's published online every weekday at http://bit.ly/bGX7UY .
Nā Miraz Jordan i takoha ēnei Kupu Tohutohu, http://knowit.co.nz . Kei te pīrangi āwhina, tohutohu mō te Ipurangi? Whakapā ki a Miraz. He kaituhi hoki a Miraz i te wāhanga Tech Universe ō te NZ Herald - kei te tā ipurangitia ia rā mahi i http://bit.ly/bGX7UY .