Teams Overview

Science isn't done in a vacuum. In addition to the famous "standing on the shoulder of giants" analogy, science is also collaborative. This is becoming even more so as scientists specialize in narrower fields and the Internet makes communication much more efficient. There are many different phases of this project and each takes a different skill set. Some people can do it all alone, but most people will want to share the load with others.

A core feature of Citizen Sky is the development and support of teams of participants. Each team will have a team leader, a professional assigned to act as an advisor and a goal. In phase two of the team release (comming soon!) each team will be given a private discussion forum and wiki pages to use for working together. This idea is based on our experience at the AAVSO where teams of amateurs and professional astronomers have created truly awesome products (such as VSX) and scientific databases (such as VSD).

Participants can start their own teams or join exisiting teams. The best teams will have members of complimentary skill sets. For example, one person may be a good writer and another good with math. Together everyone works towards a common goal.

An ultimate goal of a team could be the writing of a paper describing their results. Our second workshop will be focused on how to do data analysis and write papers. And a special issue of the Journal of the AAVSO will be dedicated to science papers written by participants (and peer-reviewed by professional astronomers). However, you do not need to write a scientific research paper. Papers intended for education and/or public outreach are also highly valued and we will have tutorials to help teams do that as well. Finally, goals need not be papers at all. It can be a software program to analyze data or a YouTube video animating a model of epsilon Aurigae (or one of the other nine stars in our 10 Star Tutorial).
 

Join

You can create your own team or become a member of an existing team.

The most successful teams will have the following attributes:

Good chemistry: Past experience suggests that some of the friendships formed within a citizen science team may last a lifetime. We recommend finding team members who you may be acquainted with, but whom you do not yet know well. This gives the team a baseline to start with but allows room for growth and new friendships to build.

Complementary skill sets: Science requires lots of diverse skill sets. Homogenous teams where everyone is good at observing, math, programming, etc. may have trouble in other areas.

A common goal: This may seem obvious, but youd be surprised at how many teams are formed by people who "just want to work together". While that is noble, you may find out that everyone has a different project in mind. Make sure the final goal and product (a paper, web page, video, etc.) is agreed upon ahead of time.

A leader: There are many different ways to lead and many different types of leader. The one thing in common is that every group needs one - including our teams. Pick a leader at the very beginning and define their role. It could be a simple or a complex role - your choice. But make it clear in the beginning.

A professional liason: We are planning to assign an astronomer to each team. This astronomer will be there to answer questions and provide advice. They will not be there to hold your hand or tell you what to do. The team needs to figure that out - remember, this is real science here. This isn't a classroom.

Obviously much more goes into a good team. The most important attribute is reliability of the team members. This means you. :)