Fig. 1.

Screenshots of Zooniverse’s free Project Builder Platform (https://www.zooniverse.org/lab). As the user inputs content into the Project Builder interface (Left), he or she can immediately view changes in the associated public-facing website (Right). Here we have displayed the “Workflow” section of the Project Builder (in which the user sets the classification task the volunteer will carry out) and the associated “Classify” page within the project’s actual website that it creates. Through the tabs located along the left-hand side of the Project Builder interface, project leads upload all of the necessary content and data for their crowdsourced research project, from inputting information about their research goals and why they need volunteers’ help in the About tab to uploading their subjects that need classifications in the “Subject Sets” tab to exporting the raw classifications provided by the volunteers through the “Data Exports” tab. The Project Builder is democratizing access to online citizen science as a tool for research and has enabled the accelerated expansion of the Zooniverse. Since its launch in July 2015, the Zooniverse has gone from launching 3–5 projects each year to launching over 50 in 2018.