Clickworkers
citizen science project
ClickWorkers was a small NASA experimental project that uses public volunteers (nicknamed "clickworkers" on the site) for scientific tasks. Clickworkers are able to work when, and for however long they choose, doing routine analysis that would normally require months of work by scientists or graduate students. The web site and database were created and maintained by one engineer, Bob Kanefsky, and advised by two scientists, Nadine Barlow and Virginia Gulick. The pilot study was sponsored by the NASA Ames Director's Discretionary Fund.
As of March 31, 2020, the Clickworkers volunteer program appears to be defunct. None of the links to the program are functional, as of that date.
Identifying Martian craters
The original phase ran from November 2000 to September 2001, identifying and classifying the age of craters on Mars images from Viking Orbiter that had already been analyzed by NASA. The goal was to answer two meta-science questions:
Is the public ready, willing, and able to help science?
Does this new way of powering science analysis produce results that are just as good as the traditional way?
In February 2001 clickworkers started processing new images from Mars Global Surveyor, surveying small craters never before cataloged. Clickworkers also searched Mars images for "honeycomb" terrain, although no further images were discovered and it is suspected that this is an illusory feature type.
The public source identifies “Clickworkers” as citizen science project. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Clickworkers, citizen and science.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Clickworkers”, the useful work is to connect “citizen science project” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q210748. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2000 and 2001.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Clickworkers”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Clickworkers primary sources, Clickworkers archive and Clickworkers research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Clickworkers”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Clickworkers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.