Interested amateurs are likely to have increased opportunities in the future to donate resources, time, or labor in support of scientific research, thanks largely to low-cost distributed computing.

The growth of peer-to-peer networking systems has created opportunities for amateurs to play a role in scientific research by donating computer time or labor. The pioneers in this arena are SETI@Home, Folding@Home, and other projects that invite people to load a piece of analytical software onto their computers. During periods of inactivity, the software downloads some data, analyses it, and then sends back the results. These programs enable those with computers to "donate" processor cycles to computationally intensive scientific or charitable activities.

It's important to remember the difference between:

Doing science on a personal level, and for the individual being involved in the science as a scientist. Advanced computer systems could help leverage individuals.

Exploiting distributed resources (e.g., SETI@Home) without the individual participating much themselves. Other examples are informed participation in medical developments (e.g., on the individual). In the future, people (and their houses, etc) will have lots of sensors, so possibilities here are substantial, especially for informing social policy (energy use, etc).

Gathering data, typically geographically specific data, or otherwise being a lab assistant, the individual devoting time and basic labour. Involving school children here, especially, can make them feel part of doing science, which will (hopefully) influence them for the rest of their lives.

SETI@Home, Folding@Home and other experiments have shown that amateurs can donate their time to analyse scientific data directly. The NASA Clickworkers system put volunteers through a simple training program to do routine analysis of Martian landscapes. The success of the system suggests that complex professional tasks done by highly trained and salaried individuals can be reorganized to tap a vast pool of tens of thousands of trained volunteers.

The strategy of Clickworkers and SETI@Home is to make science more accessible by making pieces of it very simple and by taking advantage of low-cost computing and communications. In the future, it is possible that more scientific research projects willdraw upon volunteered equipment or labour. In addition to distributed computing projects and efforts to mobilize volunteer observers, volunteers could be involved in gathering data using existing mobile communications or computing technologies -- for example, taking pictures of flora and fauna at specified times, or noting the GPS coordinates of certain objects.

Peer-to-peer and analytical computing projects have shown that it is possible to mobilize massive quantities of unused processing power or unskilled labour to do basic data analysis; such groups could be mobilized by advocacy and interest groups (e.g., supporters of breast cancer research or environmental causes) to create massive networks of volunteer labour. Expert knowledge that currently is underused in scientific research could be harnessed by custom-designed instruments with simple interfaces Finally, a new generation of sensor and smart dust technology could be used to make small instruments that volunteers carry with them, scatter about their environments, or leave in specific places, thus increasing scientists' mobility.

This will be enabled by:

Falling cost and increasing ubiquity of mobile communications and computing technologies
Growth of the open source movement
Establishment of the precedent of distributed computing projects in the 1990s and 2000s

Early indicators include:

"Proliferation of open-source, distributed computing and analysis projects such as Clickworkers and SETI@Home"

What to watch:

Volunteer projects are organised around popular issues like climate change and pollution.
NGOs and advocacy groups like Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund organise research projects for amateurs.