UK/USA: Old Weather

Old Weather

http://www.oldweather.org

1. Implementation procedure

Name of the institution running website/application:JISC http://www.jisc.ac.uk
Type of the institution running website/application:

an implementation execute by a government institution

an implementation carried out by a non-governmental institution or a private entity

Source of financing:

public resources - state budget

private resources – foundations, associations

Year of launching the website/application: n/d
Service's/application's rating:

2. Implementation's characteristics

The project is based on an “E-activity” platform, but it’s being endorsed by a range of American and British public institutions (listed below) providing documentation for the study. Central to the project is the “citizen scientist” idea promoting citizens’ active participation in academic research. A user’s role is to analyse and enter into the computer system the received scans of 19th-centrury ships’ logs created by captains (mainly on American ships) to record the weather on a given day in given locations. The latter are, subsequently, pinpointed by users through a special plug-in offered by the Google Maps application integrated to the service.

Old Weather also features social elements and a “career path” allowing users to collect points and take next steps up in the career ladder analogical to the hierarchy once underlying the navies of Anglo-Saxon countries.

You advance by contributing your work to the project, i.e. transcribing ships’ logs. With every page, you are granted points and make progress, also by receiving ever more complex materials for analysis. Also, there is the possibility of peer verification within a special forum integrated to the website.

3. Detailed description categories

Type of the service's/application user:
  • G2C: citizens
The application service's usage area:
  • services: cooperation of institutions and citizens in the implementation of public tasks ("we inform, talk and cooperate")
A communication - an indication of all the media and dissemination
  • Independent website dedicated to the application / solution eGov
Access to the full functionality of the service
  1. Access to the service requires you to register your account on the site - registration requires a specific data
    • email adress
    • password
Tracking of user's activity:
  • verification via a link sent to your email
The service's/application's usage areas
  1. Participation of citizens in collecting data (eg. Citizen scientist)
Forms of interaction with users:
  1. Blog
  2. Forum
  3. Games, simulations
  4. Video materials
  5. Interactive maps/maps integrated with Google Maps
  6. Transfer content - text, images, videos, etc.
Service's/Application's integration to social networking sites
  • Yes
Availability of service/application use instruction
Is the connection encrypted?
  • Yes

4. Service's/Application's integration with social networking sites

As for: 16.02.2015
Facebook number of fans: 784
Twitter number of followers: 692, number of tweets: 244

5. Screen gallery

Homepage << Strona główna >>

Tutorial’s page << Strona tutorialu >>

View of a user’s newly-created account << Konto użytkownika tuż po założeniu >>

List of ships whose logs can be transcribed. Ships are labelled with symbols of flags under which they sailed and stars indicating the level of difficulty of a given material << Lista okrętów, których dzienniki można przepisywać. Okręty oznaczone są wg bandery pod jaką pływały oraz poziomu trudności transkrypcji (il. gwiazdek) >>