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Check out these .gov webinars, training opportunities and crowdsourcing projects while you’re telecommuting during COVID-19
This surely is a surreal time as counties around the San Francisco Bay area are issuing “shelter in place” orders until at least April 7, 2020 and other cities around the country have already or will soon be following suit in order to try and curb the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). As we scramble […]
NARA and NOAA join Old Weather Project to crowdsource transcription of historic naval ship weather logs
According to today's press release from NOAA, the National Archives (NARA) and NOAA are teaming up and joining the Old Weather Project hosted at Zoonivers.org to crowdsource the transcription of historic ships' logs in order to extract critical environmental data. The Old Weather Project began over 2 years ago with British Royal Navy log books -- 16,400 volunteers have transcribed 1.6 million weather observations so far! Transcribed data produced by Old Weather volunteers will be integrated into existing large-scale data sets, such as the International Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS). Human volunteers are so important in this case because Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies cannot currently recognize hand-written text.
Before there were satellites, weather data transmitters, or computer databases, there were the ship’s logs of Arctic sea voyages, where sailors dutifully recording weather observations. Now, a new crowdsourcing effort could soon make of the weather data from these ship logs, some more than 150 years old, available to climate scientists worldwide. NOAA, National Archives and Records Administration, Zooniverse — a citizen science web portal — and other partners are seeking volunteers to transcribe a newly digitized set of ship logs dating to 1850. The ship logs, preserved by NARA, are from U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Revenue Cutter voyages in the Arctic between 1850 and the World War II era. [Clip] Organizers hope to enlist thousands of volunteers to transcribe scanned copies of logbook pages via the Old Weather project with an eye to Information recorded in these logbooks will also appeal to a wide array of scientists from other fields – and professionals from other fields, including historians, genealogists, as well as current members and veterans of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.[HT to Gary Price at InfoDocket for calling our attention to this project!] Continue reading
EPA wants your Documerica Photos!
This is from last year, in case you missed it. (I did.):
- Documerica Returns!, EPA blog (May 2nd, 2011). Almost 40 years ago, EPA’s Documerica project captured thousands of images of environmental problems and everyday life. Now it’s your turn! On Earth Day 2011, EPA put out a global call for current photos of life and our environment, PLUS a challenge to photograph the ‘now’ of places in Documerica. Your photo could be exhibited around the U.S. in 2012! Join In! Sign up and submit photos through Flickr!
Searching More Than 24K Pages of Email Messages From Sarah Palin Administration
The archived email messages were released earlier today and are now beginning to roll out into searchable databases and/or PDF files. Scanned pages are being added to databases as they become available. Many news organization are asking the public for assistance in reviewing all of the pages. Yet another example of crowdsourcing government records. Here are three of several source provin 1. NY Times Search NY Times: Palin E-Mail Search http://projects.nytimes.com/palin-emails/date/2008-08-01 2. MSNBC/Mother Jones/ProPublica Search: MSNBC/Mother Jones/ProPublica http://palinemail.msnbc.msn.com/ Updates at @openchannelblog and #palinemail MSNBC Live Blog With Additional Information as it Becomes Available. Also, info about documents being withheld. http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/10/6825771-heres-your-live-blog-for-the-palin-email-release-the-first-emails-are-online-now Background from Bill Dedman at MSNBC http://msnbc.msn.com/id/43281157/ns/politics-more_politics/ 3. Washington Post PDF Files of Raw Email Messages (#1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/palin-emails/pdf/Dec42006-Feb202007.pdf Additional Material http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/sarah-palin-emails/post/for-micro-updates-check-atpalinemails-palinemails/2011/06/10/AGPwBuOH_blog.html#pagebreak Continue reading
Google Map Maker links
The Scout Report has good links to CNET, Wired, and Wall Street Journal articles about Google's Map Maker project, as well as links to the American Memory Project and the David Rumsey Map Collection:
- With the release of Google Map Maker, users can contribute their own spatial knowledge, by Max Grinnell, The Scout Report (2011-04-22). In the previous millennium, those folks who wanted a high-quality map of their area might have had to go purchase or borrow an actual physical map. In recent years, online mapping tools and resources have sprouted like mushrooms after a hard rain. With all of that in mind, it is not so surprising that on Tuesday Google announced that it is allowing users to contribute changes to their very popular maps. This tool is called Google Map Maker...
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