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Volunteer Thinking with Bossa

Volunteer thinking with Bossa allows the general public to contribute to scientific workflows by performing tasks over the Internet. This middleware simplifies project deployment by reducing programming needs and offers mechanisms for implementing various policies.

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Volunteer Thinking with Bossa

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  1. David P. Anderson Space Sciences Laboratory University of California, Berkeley Volunteer Thinkingwith Bossa

  2. Scientific workflows define goals Herr Professor theorize post-docs design experiments grad students write papers lab assistants volunteers? perform experiments clean data computers analyze data

  3. Volunteer thinking • Tasks that can be divided into lots of self-contained “jobs” • Jobs can be performed over the Internet • Jobs can be done by a significant fraction of the general public (possibly with training) • Currently ~10 projects, 50K participants

  4. Example • The Stardust mission • Where’s the dust? • Stardust@home • 23K volunteers • 43M viewings • 64 tracks found

  5. Lessons learned • Motivation • Volunteers will do boring tasks; no need to play games • scientific goals • community, competition • keep volunteers informed • Quantifiably high accuracy is possible • calibration jobs • replication

  6. Fold It!

  7. Space of applications • 2D vision • pattern recognition (Stardust@home, GalaxyZoo, Clickworkers) • image analysis (ESP game) • 3D manipulation (Fold It!) • Natural language • Real-world knowledge • What else?

  8. Middleware middleware identity accounting queuing assignment validation people or computers jobs

  9. What’s different? • People vary • Jobs may not be well-defined training aptitude

  10. Bossa • Reduces the amount of programming and DB design needed to deploy a volunteer thinking project • Policies • Bossa doesn’t provide them • but it provides mechanisms that make it easy to implement a range of policies

  11. Bossa abstractions Project Application Application User User User Job Job Job Instance Instance Instance

  12. The structure of Bossa Application Bossa callback functions job_show()‏ job_issued()‏ job_finished()‏ job_timed_out()‏ bossa_show_job.php bossa_job_finished.php DB Bossa API

  13. Job and result representation • Job parameters, results stored in “opaque” PHP structures • Callback function to display a job: job_show($job, $inst) • Types of jobs • single web page • sequence of pages • offline app

  14. Job distribution policy Jobs Instances • Project A: few jobs, lots of volunteers • do all jobs once, then twice, etc. • Project B: many jobs, limited volunteers • do first job N times, then 2nd job, etc. • Bossa: each job has “priority” • adjusted by callback functions

  15. Volunteer assessment • How to assess? • training course • calibration tasks • correctness as determined by replication • Representation • may be multidimensional • may change during session • Bossa mechanisms • opaque data for user • calibration jobs • Bolt course prerequisite

  16. Replication policy • Examples • fixed replication • adaptive replication • Bossa mechanism • job_finished() decides whether more instances are needed, sets priority

  17. Use of “experts” • Alternatives • experts do the same job, but better • experts do different jobs • Bossa mechanisms • users are assigned a “level” (0, 1, ...) • jobs have priority P(i) for each level i • Example • experts resolve ambiguous jobs • job_finished(): if ambiguous, raise P(1)

  18. Bossa integration • Current: • Soon: Drupal BOINC volunteer computing Bossa volunteer thinking Bolt teaching, training BOINC Basics accounts, groups, credit, communication

  19. Projects in development • Hominids@home (fossils, Ethiopia) • Africa satellite image analysis (UC Berkeley) • Mars satellite image analysis (U of Hawaii)

  20. Conclusion • Bossa: middleware for volunteer thinking • You provide: • job representation and display • job distribution and replication policies • volunteer assessment • Future directions • thinking/computing workflows • group jobs • jobs as multiplayer online games

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