Strategy
Collective decision-making
Social insects will make decisions as a group from incomplete information. Models used to understand this collective decision making (e.g., Seeley et. al 2012) are used here to inform the choice architecture of the platform.
This way, the perceived weaknesses of community and participatory science can then be turned into strengths.
Concept
Scientific foraging
Optimal foraging assumes operators navigate their environment with perfect information of their foraging environment. This is fundamentally at odds with how research is typically conducted; projects require commitment and investment in the face of uncertain returns.
What if we conducted science through open collaboration?
Core components
01
Scientific guides
Guides to help ant keepers develop their myrmecological skills - or guides to help myrmecologists develop their ant keeping skills!
02
Observation logs
Historically, naturalists catalogued all of their observations, which could then be published. This practice doesn't have a modern analogue - so the first step is to bring it into the current era of science!
03
Hierarchical escalation
[[WIP]] Observations are tied to either (a) scientific literature or (b) hypotheses. When an observation doesn't have an explanation in the literature, it is categorized as either novel, cryptic, or documentation.