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Crowdsourcing as an Analytical Method: Metrology of Smartphone Measurements in Heritage Science
Author(s) -
Brigham Rosie,
GrauBové Josep,
Rudnicka Anna,
Cassar May,
Strlic Matija
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201801743
Subject(s) - crowdsourcing , citizen science , repeatability , measure (data warehouse) , usable , computer science , quality (philosophy) , metrology , accuracy and precision , data science , data mining , multimedia , statistics , mathematics , world wide web , physics , quantum mechanics , astronomy
This research assesses the precision, repeatability, and accuracy of crowdsourced scientific measurements, and whether their quality is sufficient to provide usable results. Measurements of colour and area were chosen because of the possibility of producing them with smartphone cameras. The quality of the measurements was estimated experimentally by comparing data contributed by anonymous participants in heritage sites with reference measurements of known accuracy and precision. Participants performed the measurements by taking photographs with their smartphones, from which colour and dimensional data could be extracted. The results indicate that smartphone measurements provided by citizen scientists can be used to measure changes in colour, but that the performance is strongly dependent on the measured colour coordinate. The same method can be used to measure areas when the difference in colour with the neighbouring areas is large enough. These results render the method useful in some heritage science contexts, but higher precision would be desirable.